Posts filed under 'Development'
Don’t review your goals on a regular basis? If so, don’t expect to achieve them.
Most people - once they actually get started - enjoy the process of goal setting. When done properly it’s fun, self-reinforcing, and allows you to dream big. The hardest thing is get people started actually writing their goals, but once they’ve started - watch out! - most people can fill pages and pages with goals.
And that’s super, it really is, but how many of you write out wonderfully detailed and thought out goals - goals so real you can taste and feel and see them - and then stick them in a drawer, never to see the light of day again?
Can I get a show of hands? Yep, I’m raising my hand too; I’ve been guilty of spending time on the “fun” part of goal setting (the actual “setting” of goals) and then skimping on the regular review of my goals.
And you know what? I find I don’t usually achieve those goals, or if I do it’s at a level much lower than it should be. So why do we do this to ourselves?
Our brains are amazing works of biology and engineering. When we ask our brain for an idea it’s like that take-a-number dispenser at the license branch, always ready to spit one out. Our brain is also muscle-like; the more we use it the stronger it gets. As we strengthen our imagination, we get stronger and stronger ideas.
So when we set goals our brain has a grand time. It revels in the good feelings that really visualizing our dreams, wants, and achievements create. When you visualize a goal using NLP (think, Tony Robbins) you are flooding your brain with signals that it likes. You are literally creating a reality in your brain that it doesn’t know isn’t real…yet.
But once your goals are written that sense of excitement and pleasure passes. It may last a day or a week, but eventually it passes. This is why you see 5,000 people in the gym on January 1st, but by the 7th the gym is empty again. That sense of excitement, motivation, and action has become routine and our brain is off to find something else to give it those pleasurable feelings again.
It’s difficult to keep a goal in your mind and keep it vivid enough to continually build this sense of excitement every day. This is why a written goal is so important.
You spend the time and energy creating a goal and you capture it while you’re brain is energized and excited. Once the goal is captured, there isn’t any room for improvisation when you come back to the goal at a later date. You’ve done all the hard work and now you can immediately put your brain back into that excited state by reviewing and re-visualizing your goal.
It’s this review process that keeps your brain (and yourself) stimulated and excited. It should consist of a daily review of your goals. Actually, it should be a several-times-a-day review of your goals.
Some people advocate reading your goals every morning when you get up, and again every night before you go to bed. I don’t have the discipline to do that - I’m not a morning person and by bedtime I’m ready to hit the sack. So here are some easy ways that I make sure I keep my goals available for daily review:
1) Keep your goals with you always.
One thing I find very helpful is to keep my key goals with me - I write them on a blank business card and keep it in my wallet. I see them as I put cash or receipts in my wallet - usually at least two or three times a day. The trick here is not to hide the card down in a credit-card slot - make it so you can’t miss it when you’re in the main part of your wallet.
2) Keep your goals present in your environment.
I have a cork-board that - when I’m sitting at my desk - fills my field of vision when I look to the right. I keep a single 8.5″ x 11″ sheet of paper with my goals tacked up so it’s the first thing I see on the board. I find that I look at this all day long.
3) Keep your goals present where you can’t possibly miss them during the course of a day.
I’ve also been known to write my goals on “Post-It” notes and stick them to the bathroom mirror. I see them every morning when I get ready for the day and every night when I get ready for bed. I’ve found that putting material goals on the bathroom mirror is helpful; I write a blurb on a “Post-It” note and clip a small picture from a catalog or magazine and add it. The image is usually more powerful than the words when I’m getting ready for work - and I can visualize my goals while relaxing in a hot shower. Now that’s a powerful way to reinforce your goals, the pleasure of a hot shower beating down on your while you get yourself excited and motivated by mentally reviewing and re-visualizing your goals!
4) Keep reminders in interesting and unusual places to shake up your patterns.
Finally I have written at the top of my white-board on my office at work; “Have you reviewed your goals today?” in bright, blue marker. Every time I look up to see who has come into my office I see my white-board. Every time I look to the left I see it. I’ve got myself covered if I look to the left or to the right!
As you begin to regularly review your goals a curious thing will start to happen; your perspective of your goals and yourself will change. You’ll start to notice that working on your goals just seems to happen; you find time to squeeze in a little more effort here and there.
It isn’t magic, it’s the power of you. You’ve given a command to your brain, you’ve made it “real” as far as your brain knows, and you’re regularly reviewing your goal. Your brain can’t help but make progress on your goal, it’s what it does.
As you start to achieve your goals and set new goals, you’ll naturally start to raise the bar on your new goals. You will experience growth!
After you go through this cycle a few times, the regular review of your goals will start to become a habit and it will be easier to remember to do (and actually do). As you grow and develop, you’ll find that your goal setting and goal review process becomes a feedback loop. This feedback loop creates even more growth and development.
Your growth and potential are only limited by yourself and your imagination…and the constant review of your goals that brings you constant growth of yourself!
January 25th, 2006
Are you comfortable? Can you go through your day on auto-pilot, not having to think to deeply or work to hard? Does your job seem routine, with only minor issues popping up now and again? Do you sometimes feel a little stagnant?
Everyone gets stuck in a comfort zone now and again. It’s easy to do, and it’s comfortable. We let our routines and habits become our masters. We show up at work, “zombie” through the day, and return home to spend another night the same way as the night before.
I’m not saying that any of this is bad mind you. When you’re life is going well and the status quo doesn’t seem to be all that bad, it’s easy to get trapped by daily routine in a good way. We don’t look at our job or our life and say, “Man, things could be so much better…” We look at our job and our life and say, “Man, I’m doing pretty good right now.”
Getting stuck in a comfort zone is an impediment to personal and professional growth. If you’re comfortable, you’re probably not striving quite as hard (or maybe at all) to get to that next level. You’re probably not raising the bar higher and higher because things feel pretty good right where they are.
So why should you care about breaking out of your comfort zone, and why is it so critical you do?
Success and achievement often comes from failure and being told you can’t do something. It takes energy, motivation and action to create these successes. When you’re down and out it’s a lot easier to build up massive energy and gather massive action and put it to bear on building yourself back up.
No one wants to be at the bottom; people naturally want to excel and grow and make themselves and their lives better. When a failure has set you back or an obstacle has been placed in your way it’s a challenge to build the action necessary to build yourself to that next level.
Once you’ve built yourself up a few level though, you’ll find that things are getting better. Life isn’t quite so hard, maybe not as much of a challenge. You’ve proven yourself by overcoming the obstacle that was put in your way. You start to get comfortable, and once that happens your growth and development slows to a crawl.
So if you want to take your life to the next level you have to be prepared to step outside of your comfort zone. You have to be willing to demand more for yourself, and you have to be willing to undertake tasks that may be difficult to start growing again.
There are three reasons you must break out of your comfort zone:
1) You’re not growing
If you want to grow and develop you have to keep yourself challenged.
When you’re completely comfortable with your job or your life or your relationship - with whatever in your life is totally comfortable - you won’t be growing.
It’s very difficult for us to be in a state of non-motion. When we humans aren’t growing up, we’re slipping down. Sometimes this can spur a burst of activity to get back to your comfort zone if you slip below it too much, but rarely will you bust above your comfort zone without conscious effort and action.
2) You’re not learning
Every time I’ve forced myself outside of my comfort zone I’ve learned something very interesting and useful. It’s true, I might learn what doesn’t work, but I’m still learning.
Life is one big learning opportunity. Every outcome, every success, every failure, everything has something we can learn from. If you’re comfortable and maintaining the status quo, I suspect you’re not learning anything terribly useful.
When you step outside of your comfort zone you will end up learning, and you’ll keep yourself in a state where you continue to learn as your circumstances and situation are continually changing.
3) You’re not leading and inspiring
While you’re busy pulling yourself up something interesting happens; when you move up and perform at a new level there will be people at the level you just left who are looking for leadership and inspiration to help them build themselves up as well.
No matter how high you develop your skills and talents, and no matter what exceptional achievements you have, there will always be other people that will look to you as a leader and as inspiration for achieving and growing their own abilities and successes.
Being a leader and inspiring other people is part of the job requirement when you use your unique talents to grow your life in a positive and fulfilling direction. It’s part and parcel of every development and achievement minded person’s journey.
As you achieve and succeed and develop your own life, you will eventually begin to feel a powerful desire to help others.
Once you’re comfortable it can be intimidating to step out of that zone. You have to have the perseverance and desire to take action even when your brain is telling you, “Hey, no need to change! Things are going pretty good right now, just relax and enjoy!” Once you take charge of yourself and generate the motivation and action to take the first step and move outside of your comfort zone you’ll find that it gets easier each time.
I recently decided that I needed to go back to school and get a degree. I have done pretty well for myself without a college degree, but it’s something I wanted to achieve. Having not been in school for over ten years, I can safely say that walking in to the class room last week was definitely stepping outside of my comfort zone.
As the professor was presenting the information on the syllabus I kept thinking to myself, “Are you nuts? You’ll have homework! You haven’t done homework in ten year! You won’t have any free time, you’ll have to study, you’ll have tests! What were you thinking?”
After being in classes for two weeks now I have committed myself to my goal and I’ve grown a little in the process.
Deciding to write this web site was a step outside of my comfort zone. I’ve opened myself up to public scrutiny and possible taunting and ridicule. I’ve created a site where I have to create a stream of fresh content on a regular basis, in addition to fulfilling the responsibilities I have in my professional and personal life.
But I believe that more people will find the articles on this web site information, useful and (hopefully) entertaining. I believe that I’ll help other people by providing them ideas and tools they can use to build themselves up. Again, now that I’ve moved outside of my comfort zone I feel I’ve grown and improved myself a little more.
All you have to do is keep finding comfort zones you have and making a conscious decision to step out of them. When you do you’ll feel it, but the reward and the personal growth is well worth it!
January 19th, 2006
When faced with a tough choices how do you progress and finally make a decision? Some decisions are simple to analyze while others create stress and agony for us while we ponder “what to do.”
There are books about making decisions in an instant, and when pushed into a tough spot most people go with their gut feeling.
Most of the time they’re right.
I’m a huge fan of the quiz-show Jeopardy. Often I’ll be watching - playing along at home - and when an “answer” is revealed I’ll blurt out a “question” (usually the first thing that comes to mind). Often I’ll think to myself, “No, that can’t be right…” and I’ll change my answer before the correct “question” is revealed.
Almost every time I revise my “question” to the “answer” I find I’m wrong. When I trust my gut and go with the first thing my brain called up I find I have a much higher occurrence of being correct.
I’m not right 100% of the time, no one is, but by making a snap decision - and trusting my gut and years of reading trivia to allow my brain to instantly call up the right “question” - I find that I’m right often enough to amaze my wife with the number of “answers” I “question” correctly.
If you’re the kind of person who loves (or hates) to agonize over a decision, researching and endless thinking about options and outcomes, you’ll spend a lot of time deciding and not much time acting. And it’s often the action that makes us successful in our ventures.
I have a friend who never seems to plan things out much, he really flies by the seat of his pants. He trusts his gut and is quick to make a decision - faster than just about anyone else I know. For all of his quick decision making and lack of planning and analyzing he’s remarkably successful.
He’s not successful because he’s only making the right decisions, he’s successful because he’s making a ton of decisions and quickly moving past the bad decisions. What he lacks in detailed planning he makes up for in sheer, massive action!
If you’re not making “gut” decisions because the very idea sounds intimidating the good news is that quick, “gut” decisions can be learned. I used to agonize over restaurant menus; I never knew what I wanted, I would waffle back and forth between several items and I always had to tell the server that I needed another few minutes.
One day I read a book on achievement and it said that Major League baseball hall of fame hitters only connect 3 out of every 10 times they’re at bat and that’s enough to put them in the hall of fame. They make snap decisions on when to swing and they recover quickly from their mistakes. That really sunk in with me - I needed to learn to make quicker decisions. So I started at restaurants.
The next time my wife and I were at a restaurant I started my learning process. I didn’t open the menu and I didn’t think about the options available to me. When the waiter came up to take our order I asked, “What sounds good to you tonight?” They were a little surprised and then said they were planning on getting the salmon. I said, “Gee, that does sound good. I’ll take that.” I didn’t really think it sounded good - I’m more of a steak man myself - but I wanted to force myself to make quick decisions.
It turns out that it was indeed a good meal. I’ve ordered it several times since and it’s one of my non-beef favorites.
So I slowly started making quick decisions at restaurants - trusting my gut and usually walking away full and happy. Slowly I noticed that I started feeling okay while making quick decisions on other, smaller aspects of my life; next came my career and work life and then those small decisions became a little bigger and a little bigger.
Now I feel comfortable trusting my gut in many situations. I’m not crazy - if I think a decision will significantly impact my life I will give it the time and research it’s due to make sure it’s a good decision. But for everything else I try to just reach down inside, do a gut check, and make a decision trusting that I’ll be right more often than I’ll be wrong.
Here are some additional tips to help you ease into trusting your gut when you make decisions. You don’t need to write pages and pages of detail, just enough so you can review your notes later - when you’re distanced from the decision - and see what the results were:
* When you are faced with a decision write down what you’re thinking and feeling. Be as objective as possible!
* Write down the pros of making the decision.
* Write down the cons of not making the decision.
* Write down how you will feel if you make the decision, and what you believe the impact on your life or career will be.
* Write down how you will feel if you don’t make the decision, and what you believe the impact on your life or career will be.
* Write down your “gut” decision.
* Write down your “analyzed” decision.
* Write down the decision you actually make.
After sufficient time has passed - maybe weeks, maybe months - and you’re feeling like you’re reasonable distanced from the decision pull out your notes and review them.
What was the outcome of your decision? How did it ultimately impact your life? Was your “gut” decision right - or if you didn’t make the gut decision do you believe it would have been the better decision?
Hopefully you’ll see that more often than not you’re gut feeling is correct when making a decision. You just have to learn to trust yourself and your abilities; and you have to learn that it’s okay to make decisions quickly because that gives you more chances to put action into your life.
When you have a lot of action you’ll find you make a lot more progress and achieve a lot more than you thought possible!
January 17th, 2006
Anthony Robbins - former king of the infomercial - has some free tools available on his web site to help you get started setting your goals for the new year. You can visit his web site for more details.
He is offering a free workbook in PDF format, “7 Steps to a Fulfilling 2006″
The seven steps he outlines are:
- Get Clear.
- Get Certain.
- Get Excited.
- Get Focused.
- Get Committed.
- Get Momentum.
- Get Smart.
Also available is an audio program (MP3) called “The Power of Clarity” with a PDF workbook that accompanies the audio program.
If you’re new to Tony’s approach his material is based on the principal of neuro linguistic programming (NLP for short). NLP is the study of how people interact with the world (visually, aurally through sound and hearing, or through touch and feel). Tony’s approach to improvement employs NLP to tie all three together to get you to not only visualize your desired outcome, but also hear and feel it as well.
If you pick up any of Tony’s books or have a chance to listen to his audio program you’ll see more how NLP works.
For today go grab the materials on his web site and start getting your goals together for 2006!
Have a prosperous 2006!
January 3rd, 2006
Do you let negative people poison you with their limiting beliefs? Do you have people in your life that don’t seem to have anything positive to say when you share a goal, dream or plan? If you do, you’re probably letting their negativity bring your level of performance and achievement down - even if you don’t think it’s happening!
In my life I’ve had people around who were not positive when I shared with them a business plan or a goal I had set. Sometimes they were even negative when we were talking in general. I’m guessing that you probably have someone like this in your life - hopefully you know who it is (sometimes figuring out who’s your “negative nelly” can be tricky). Once you know who it is (or who they are for some of you) you need to figure out what steps you need to take to make sure their negativity doesn’t cause you to start to doubt your own abilities, plans and successes.
Let me share an example; years ago when I was just out of school, I had a friend who was pretty happy with his station in life. Let’s just say his station involved playing a lot of video games, living at home for free, and not working any harder than he needed to in order to pay his car payment. He wasn’t what you would call “ambitious.”
He was always negative when I would talk to him about my plans. He had fifty reasons my business wouldn’t succeed. He had all the reasons why moving into an apartment when I didn’t have a guaranteed paycheck was a bad idea. He knew exactly why he wasn’t able to get ahead himself, or find a better paying job; society was keeping him down.
I never thought I took any of his negativity to heart. I would try to let it roll off my back, and for the most part I think I did a pretty good job. I did start a business, I did move into (what was for me at the time) a pretty expensive apartment. I was doing all the things that he said I would fail at. I thought I was doing great!
But over time I realized that every now and then this little voice would pop up and say, “Maybe Joe was right about this. Maybe it’s a fluke that things are working out for you…” By listening to, and being around, a negative person I had picked up a limiting belief that wasn’t even originally mine. He had passed it on like a cold!
I was fortunate enough to find and work with a mentor and business coach during this time. I really began to realize who around me was genuinely trying to help me by questioning my assumptions and statements, and who was just negative and trying to tear my goals, hopes and dreams down.
After several years I decided that “Joe” was bringing me more pain and negativity than I wanted or could handle in our relationship. I decided that the best thing to do would be to stop spending time with him. I had to take a very drastic step and “fire” a friend. When you don’t identify negative people around you early, and take steps to minimize their negative influence on you, you sometimes have to take drastic actions like stopping the friendship.
You have to be careful too when looking for negative people. Not everyone who disagrees with you is being negative! Also, some people who seem to be negative are really supportive, they’re just challenging you with, “how.”
If you tell your negative friend you’re going to earn a million dollars they might say, “You can’t earn a million dollars, you never went to college.” A supporter would say something like, “It will be very difficult to earn a million dollars - impossible without the right plan.”
If you stop listening after your supporter says this, you’ll miss their follow up comment; “Lets talk about your action plan to see if it makes sense to reach your goal.” A lot of times the distinction between someone being negative and trying to tear you down, and someone being supportive, but asking hard questions, won’t be so clear.
So, how do you handle people in your life who are chronically negative that you can’t “fire?” You can try to understand why they’re being negative. Is it the result of a bad experience they’ve had with a goal you’re trying to achieve? Are they worried you’ll fail and make a fool of yourself?
I’ve often found it’s the latter. Many times you’ll find the people who are most negative are the people who love you the most. I don’t believe it’s because they are trying to poison you, but they’re afraid your failure to achieve a goal will be too much to bear (but for you or for them I don’t know).
The best thing I’ve found to do with people who are negative for these reasons is to start small, share your cemented successes, and build up the goals and dreams you share with them slowly. If you burst into the room and exclaim, “I’m going to be president of my company in 2 years!” They’re going to slip into “negative nelly” mode. If you burst into the room and exclaim, “I just got promoted to manager of my department! I’m going to start learning how I can keep moving up in my company. I would enjoy being at the top someday.” you’ve shared with them an absolute achievement - you received a promotion - and you’ve set the stage to start talking about your rise to the CEO’s office.
It’s much harder for your constantly-negative loved one to poison you with limiting beliefs if you take this approach with them.
To enhance your success, goals and personal development, stop listening to negative people who want to tear you down. They’re not being negative to warn you away from disaster, they’re being negative because they’re jealous of your ambitions and goals. Share your small successes - if you keep them in your life at all - and make sure you supplement yourself with positive material on a regular basis. There are so many great resources on the Internet, in your local book stores and at the library that you’ll have more material available than you can use in one lifetime!
December 30th, 2005
How much are you worth? How much is your time worth? If you’re like most people, I can guarantee you think and act like your time is worth less than it really is; in some cases much less.
When I ask, “What are you worth?” I don’t mean net worth (which is important). I mean, how do you value yourself and how do you perceive the value you add to the relationships you’re in?
If you earn $75,000 a year and you’re being compensated for a 40 hour week, your time is worth $36.06 per hour. If you didn’t add at least $36 per hour in value to your business relationships, you probably wouldn’t stay employed for long.
But do you think of your worth in terms of dollars and cents on a daily or hourly basis? If you don’t, why not? Lawyers sure do, doctors too. Good businessmen and executives know their worth - their value - to the penny, and so should you. Why? Good question!
Consider this scenario; you’ve put in a hard week working (your value is $36 per hour remember?) and you’re ready to relax on a beautiful, sunny Saturday. Right about the time you open a frosty beverage and sit down to relax your wife reminds you that the yard needs to be cut. It takes about two hours to cut, trim and rake the yard; you would rather be golfing or fishing or napping - anything else - on this beautiful, sunny, warm Saturday afternoon. You know the neighbor has a kid who will cut the yard for $30 - should you pay him?
If you know what value you bring ($36 per hour), you can make a much better evaluation as to whether this is a good value. In the scenario above, it would take you two hours to cut the yard; that’s worth $72 of your time. You can get the job done for $30. If you value your time, it might be a good investment to pay to have the yard cut unless you really enjoy cutting grass.
This is a simple example to be sure, but think if you could use that time to generate extra income, or improve yourself a bit more. If you could “earn” your value while paying to have the yard cut, you would be $42 ahead. This is a powerful way to maximize your time and your value.
Knowing your worth is also extremely helpful when you have to make decisions about committing your time to projects. If you have a firm understanding of your value, when someone asks you to take on extra projects at work, or clients ask for more of your time, or your community center wants you to chair an event you can ask yourself, “Knowing my value is $X - is this a good and worthwhile use of my time?”
If you can’t answer “yes” to that question, or it’s not a task or cause you feel extremely positive about helping, it might be better to graciously pass on the offer.
If you don’t know your value, you can’t make an assessment like this; you will likely get stuck with another project or involved in another group from which you may not find (or provide) value.
You can also use your understanding of your value, to steer your behavior. An excellent exercise is to ask, “If I were worth $300 per hour, how would I behave?” Using the power of visualization, you can create a state where you do earn $300 (or $500, or $1000) dollars per hour - you can visualize you’re earning like a high-end New York attorney - and you can visualize how you might behave if your value were at this much higher level.
This gets you more comfortable thinking about money and larger sums of money. The ultimate goal of your visualization is to get yourself to feel completely comfortable believing that you do bring a value of $300 per hour (or more) to your business dealings. It’s a new concept for many people to think this way, and it’s usually uncomfortable to start thinking of yourself providing this level of value. If you don’t feel comfortable, you won’t believe in yourself; and if you don’t believe in yourself - that you truly do provide this high level of value - you won’t be successful; it becomes a limiting belief. Remember the words of Henry Ford; “If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.”
- The first step is becoming aware of what your value is today, and use that knowledge to steer your decisions.
- The second step is to get yourself comfortable with the idea that you provide a much higher level of value. Use the power of visualization to practice this and set a high goal for yourself; try for at least 10 times what your “today” value is, really stretch your visualization muscles!
- The last step is to truly believe you are worth this much higher value, and that you do provide this level of value. When you really believe this, it’s not difficult to earn $300 per hour, or $1000 per hour, or even $10,000 per hour. Consider real-estate; it’s possible for almost anyone to buy real-estate and sell it for a profit. All it takes is research on which piece of real-estate to buy. If you figure out your value for a transaction like this, it’s very possible your worth will be several hundred dollars per hour.
When you’re aware of your worth - and you use the power that knowledge brings - you can increase your worth. When you visualize a worth you want to obtain, you can learn and condition yourself to act (today) as if you do bring a higher value to your interactions with people. This will - in fact - lead you to actually having a higher value in your mind and in others’ minds. Once you open you mind to such possibilities, it’s freed and ready to help fill in the detail of how to make it happen.
But only if you know what you’re worth!
December 26th, 2005
I’ve been keeping a journal for over 9 years. I don’t know what prompted me to start writing, but one day I decided it would be a good idea. At the time I had an old, beat-up laptop with a copy of MS Works for DOS and I kept my journal in a text file.
Over the years I’ve tried various journaling techniques, I’ve used software specifically for keeping a diary or journal, I’ve used pen and paper, I’ve used MS Word and formatted my journal more like a book, complete with index and cross-references.
But the bottom line is this; no matter what the technology, I’ve keep a written record of my life for the last 9 years.
I didn’t know at the time what my intention was - it wasn’t to be able to look back and chart my growth (a benefit I stumbled on later) - but it felt like something I should be doing. In hind-sight I’m so glad I started.
How about you? Do you keep a journal of your life? If you don’t, it’s something you should seriously consider starting.
What is the purpose of keeping a journal? I find that when I write I’m not consciously thinking about the future, I’m usually just recapturing major events and changes in my life. It just so happens that in doing this I usually get a pretty good snapshot of my mood, my attitude, and the major “pain” areas of my life.
As I grow and change, I find that my “pain” areas change. As I improve my attitude or my outlook changes, I find it impacts my writing too. Nine years ago many of my journal entries were about what I thought I was going to do in life. Seven years ago many were focused on money (or my lack thereof). Five years ago entries covered some rough business situations and relationships I was in. Three years ago I wrote about how my life had changed since getting married. Now I find I write a lot about my future and goal setting.
I can look back through my journals and get a sense of where I was and what my major life-obstacles were at almost any point in the last 9 years.
You also can’t manage what you don’t measure. By writing about the issues (both positive and negative) as well as tracking my successes (or failures) in achieving goals and keeping commitments I am constantly measuring myself. This means I can manage my success, development and personal improvement much more easily than if I didn’t journal - and the same holds true for you too.
I also find that I write more often when things are really tough for me and life is throwing fastballs. I am not a daily writer, but I may write two or three times a week when I’m especially frustrated about some aspect of my life. It’s therapeutic to get my thoughts and frustrations out on paper.
Once I can see them written out, they don’t seem quite so overwhelming. Once I’ve emptied out my head and put everything in writing I find my brain seems to churn out ideas and solutions more readily than when it’s carrying all thoughts and ideas that I’ve written. I’ve recently read about this in “Getting Things Done” and “Ready for Anything”, David Allen attributes this fountain of ideas to having an empty brain. Once you empty it out, your brain will start to generate new ideas to fill itself back up. This is definitely true for me, and I use this to my advantage by journaling and getting as much out of my head as possible.
The only journaling issue I constantly struggle with is this; what is the best way for me to journal? I started with a plain ‘ol text file in a computer. I used paper journals for a long time (my favorite is the “Anything Book” and a nice fountain pen), and lately I’ve been using MS Word to collect, index and reference my thoughts. I like the allure of pen-and-paper, and you don’t need to worry about hard-drive crashes, but keeping a journal digitally is just so convenient! I’ll leave the best method of keeping a journal as an exercise to you.
Starting a journal is extremely easy too; grab some paper and write about your day. I’m not formal, I don’t start entries with “Dear diary…” I write as if I was sending a letter to someone - in this case myself - because that’s ultimately what I’m doing. I’m sending a letter to myself in the future. I put the date of the top of a blank page and then just start getting thoughts out of my head. Spelling and grammar is optional, unless you want to preserve your writings for your children or grandchildren.
And that’s another benefit of keeping a journal, passing some intimate history down through the family. My sister has our grandmother’s journal from when she was a young lady. It creates a special connection and provides a real-life window into the history of our family.
If you currently keep a journal, congratulations! You’re ahead of a lot of people in your pursuit of personal development and improvement. If you’re not yet journaling on a regular basis I would like to encourage you to give it a try. Promise yourself you’ll write weekly for two months, set some goal for keeping a journal and give it a try. Remember, you can’t manage what you don’t measure; start measuring yourself so you can maximize your ability to successfully complete your goals and continually improve and develop yourself.
December 19th, 2005
My father-in-law has a saying of which I’m fond; he maintains, “Practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.”
In his hey-day my father-in-law was a competitive archer, and he likes to tell stories from competitions past, but he always stresses that what he accomplished during a tournament wasn’t the result of luck or wishing or wanting to win “real bad.” It was the result of hours and hours of practice…perfect practice.
My father-in-law never called it this, but a large part of his practice was visualization. He visualized the bow in his hands. He visualized the arrow settled in the rest. He visualized the tension as he drew the bow. He visualized the arrow as it flew from the bow and, most importantly, he visualized the arrow hitting dead-center on the target.
He saw all of this happen in his mind before he ever drew back the arrow or even picked up the bow. He did all of this over and over in his mind before each and every shot he took.
Visualization is an extremely powerful tool, but it alone won’t make you a super-star. For that you need a coach. My father-in-law did have some luck on his side, he caught the attention of one of the top archery shooters who took on the role of a coach; his mentor.
His mentor taught the base skills, how to technically be a perfect archer. The rest was up to my father-in-law and that’s where persistence, visualization and perfect practice comes in to play.
So what did all of this perfect practice and visualization do for my father-in-law? Well, he didn’t pick up a bow until he was an adult and in the course of only a few years was at a point where he had to decide between turning pro and spending all of him time on the road, or keeping archery as a hobby and spending time with his children. That’s a pretty powerful accomplishment for someone who won his first bow in a raffle.
There are two keys to being better at whatever it is you do. The first key is finding a coach. You have to get your technical skills down so you can practice perfectly in the first place. The second key is visualization, using your mind to create a perfect reality in which you cannot fail at anything you attempt.
When you visualize an outcome in your brain, the chemical reactions fire just like they do when you actually attempt the same activity in real life.
When you visualize in your head, you have the ability to break the rules. It’s your own miniature “Matrix” - you can bend the rules in your favor.
You can visualize giving the perfect speech over and over, you can visualize sinking that 20 foot putt over and over, you can visualize anything you can imagine. When you couple your visualization with the skills you learn from your coach you create a situation where you’re practicing perfectly, and you’re getting better at whatever you’ve put your energy and effort into.
And through small improvements you can see a huge change in your life. If you can improve just 1% a week on whatever aspect you’re turning your energy you’ll see a 52% improvement in the course of a year.
That’s a huge return on your investment! Wouldn’t you be doing back-flips if your stock portfolio turned in a 52% return in a year? Wouldn’t you be doing back-flips if your personal-development portfolio turned in a 52% improvement in a year?
When you work with a coach or mentor and you put to work the power of visualization you unleash a tremendous amount of energy that you can direct to personal development; if you want a better than 50% return don’t settle for a 1% improvement each week, strive for a 1% improvement each day. The sky’s the limit when you put these tools to work for you!
December 13th, 2005
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