Reaching Life Goals on Cruise Control
Reaching Life Goals on Cruise Control
Coach Answer: Although you do need to identify and write down life goals, you need more than that to really move forward. The easier the approach, the more likely your success—if your approach is sound.
Start with a trustworthy contextual productivity system (CPS) like GTD (Getting Things Done, the book and philosophy by David Allen), TRO (Total, Relaxed Organization, a simplified and enhanced approach to GTD principles), or Total Workday Control (a system by Michael Linenberger). You could also rely on a "Now Do This" dedicated admin at a cost of about $50,000/year (don't laugh, one of my friends uses this method).
Once your system works for you comfortably, you just need to add two simple things to start realizing the progress and accomplishment you’re missing.
Here they are.
Step One: Create a Strategic Calendar.
Time is the capital of life. Progress requires time—there is no other way—and we become who we become according to where we actually spend our time. Allocate adequate time for each area that is important to you. This will be your flexible “time budget” to keep your life balanced and focused on what matters most to you.
These life areas and time allocations are really "50,000-foot goals" or views from a high-flying airplane to use David Allen’s metaphor. Inside those life areas you will eventually focus on much more specific goals that inspire and motivate you.
If you don’t yet have a strategic calendar, create a task in your task list to set one up. Allocate time to each major area of your life that matters to you. Then consider looking for a good software tool that will automatically help you focus on tasks in those life areas during those times of your day, week, and month. To find these tools, do a Google search for: GTD "time categorization", GTD "time filtering", or GTD "strategic calendar". Different vendors name this feature differently.
With or without a software tool, your strategic calendar is your general, flexible guide to what you want to be doing when. Balance your life by honoring these general appointments as an overall framework for your day.
Step Two: Establish Projects for Your Life Goals.
Have you decided what your goals are in each area? (This isn’t a vague, feel-good statement about goal-setting! Read on.) To get what you want, first you have to decide what you want. Then “collect” those wishes/goals into a trustworthy system that will actually lead you forward.
Once proper tasks/projects are collected, achieving those goals with your system is as simple as: 1) deciding/scheduling the next step (processing); and 2) honoring your appointments on those next steps. When you’re following your trustworthy system is should be easy, so steady progress is as inevitable as waking up each morning. If it's not easy, you need a new system or help implementing the system you've adopted—get a coach or self-training guide. A good system makes your progress more certain because your next steps are appropriately scheduled without burdening you.
Tip Number 1: With systems like TRO and TWC, next steps for critical, carefully-selected life goals need realistic “hard” reminder dates when they will be converted from passive task entries to "Do Today" items. Otherwise they may slip indefinitely. (Alternatively, with GTD you must not skip your Weekly Review, at all costs.) This will ensure inevitable progress on those goals. Once you put something firmly on its “conveyor belt of destiny“ it moves forward inexorably, one “next step” at a time. You make progress without even realizing it. Once a month during a regular monthly review you’ll assess your progress, taking somewhere between a few minutes (TRO) to half an hour or more (GTD) to make sure you're on track.
Tip Number 2: What if you don’t know what your goal is in some life area like “Career”? The answer is to create a general project called “Career goals”, then think about your long-term goals, brainstorm possible goals, or even do a little research to help you decide. Record that brainstorming or research as the next step for that project and schedule it like any other next step.
Tip Number 3: Be sure to identify the correct next step. If you hesitate to move forward on a goal, you’ve got a vague or incorrect next step that needs to be changed.
With these pieces in place, you will naturally focus and act on the goals that mean the most in your life. The conveyor belt of your trusted system will move you steadily forward, automatically, until your goals fulfill their purpose.
Reaching Life Goals on Cruise Control - To learn more about this author, visit Kevin Crenshaw's Website.
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Client Question: “I feel like I’m spinning my wheels, not really accomplishing the big things in life. My goals are not clarified or mapped out, and I don’t have a system in place that allows me to see that I am moving along, that I am progressing. What’s the answer?”
Coach Answer: Although you do need to identify and write down life goals, you need more than that to really move forward. The easier the approach, the more likely your success—if your approach is sound.
Start with a trustworthy contextual productivity system (CPS) like GTD (Getting Things Done, the book and philosophy by David Allen), TRO (Total, Relaxed Organization, a simplified and enhanced approach to GTD principles), or Total Workday Control (a system by Michael Linenberger). You could also rely on a "Now Do This" dedicated admin at a cost of about $50,000/year (don't laugh, one of my friends uses this method).
Once your system works for you comfortably, you just need to add two simple things to start realizing the progress and accomplishment you’re missing.
Here they are.
Step One: Create a Strategic Calendar.
Time is the capital of life. Progress requires time—there is no other way—and we become who we become according to where we actually spend our time. Allocate adequate time for each area that is important to you. This will be your flexible “time budget” to keep your life balanced and focused on what matters most to you.
These life areas and time allocations are really "50,000-foot goals" or views from a high-flying airplane to use David Allen’s metaphor. Inside those life areas you will eventually focus on much more specific goals that inspire and motivate you.
If you don’t yet have a strategic calendar, create a task in your task list to set one up. Allocate time to each major area of your life that matters to you. Then consider looking for a good software tool that will automatically help you focus on tasks in those life areas during those times of your day, week, and month. To find these tools, do a Google search for: GTD "time categorization", GTD "time filtering", or GTD "strategic calendar". Different vendors name this feature differently.
With or without a software tool, your strategic calendar is your general, flexible guide to what you want to be doing when. Balance your life by honoring these general appointments as an overall framework for your day.
Step Two: Establish Projects for Your Life Goals.
Have you decided what your goals are in each area? (This isn’t a vague, feel-good statement about goal-setting! Read on.) To get what you want, first you have to decide what you want. Then “collect” those wishes/goals into a trustworthy system that will actually lead you forward.
Once proper tasks/projects are collected, achieving those goals with your system is as simple as: 1) deciding/scheduling the next step (processing); and 2) honoring your appointments on those next steps. When you’re following your trustworthy system is should be easy, so steady progress is as inevitable as waking up each morning. If it's not easy, you need a new system or help implementing the system you've adopted—get a coach or self-training guide. A good system makes your progress more certain because your next steps are appropriately scheduled without burdening you.
Tip Number 1: With systems like TRO and TWC, next steps for critical, carefully-selected life goals need realistic “hard” reminder dates when they will be converted from passive task entries to "Do Today" items. Otherwise they may slip indefinitely. (Alternatively, with GTD you must not skip your Weekly Review, at all costs.) This will ensure inevitable progress on those goals. Once you put something firmly on its “conveyor belt of destiny“ it moves forward inexorably, one “next step” at a time. You make progress without even realizing it. Once a month during a regular monthly review you’ll assess your progress, taking somewhere between a few minutes (TRO) to half an hour or more (GTD) to make sure you're on track.
Tip Number 2: What if you don’t know what your goal is in some life area like “Career”? The answer is to create a general project called “Career goals”, then think about your long-term goals, brainstorm possible goals, or even do a little research to help you decide. Record that brainstorming or research as the next step for that project and schedule it like any other next step.
Tip Number 3: Be sure to identify the correct next step. If you hesitate to move forward on a goal, you’ve got a vague or incorrect next step that needs to be changed.
With these pieces in place, you will naturally focus and act on the goals that mean the most in your life. The conveyor belt of your trusted system will move you steadily forward, automatically, until your goals fulfill their purpose.
Reaching Life Goals on Cruise Control - To learn more about this author, visit Kevin Crenshaw's Website.
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Cheryl MatthynssensCheryl is a life skills coach, licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor and a 20 year entrepreneur. Cheryl's dedication to achieving a life of balance led to her expanding her teaching from the simple managing of life's daily challenges to adding financial well being as well. A direct marketer with DrinkACT, she is gaining ground in the online community with her concepts of making sure business owners, entreprenuers and employees have well rounded life styles. She opened up a small affiliate site - The Balance Guide- to help others find resources for mental and emotional well being. Visit Cheryl's blog to see more of the diversity beyond business she has began offering online at www.thebalanceguide.blogspot.com - Visit Cheryl Matthynssens's Website |
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Anne BarrAnne Barr has over 26 years experience in sales and marketing, six years as a franchisee. She has assisted over 367 business owners and purchasers to achieve their goals in career change, transition and exit strategy. She holds the designation of Certified Franchise Executive from the International Franchise Association, Certified Business Intermediary from the International Business Brokers Association and Board Certified Broker from the Texas Association of Business Brokers. Anne is active in professional organizations, networking groups and volunteers for non-profit entities. As owner/operator of four successful businesses, Anne has proven people skills and enjoys helping clients find the right "fit" in business ownership. Visit www.FranchiseOpportunitySpecialist.com for more information about me and my company. - Visit Anne Barr's Website |
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Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team culture consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. Dianne's contribution to the 2010 Pfeiffer Consulting Journal (an imprint of John Wiley and Sons Publishers) entitled TIGERS Hearted Teams is available in November 2009. Her new book TIGERS Among Us: 5 Winning Business Team Cultures And Why, Three Creeks Publishing will release in March 2010. To receive publishing discounts, subscribe to the free TigerTracks Newsletter here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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George LudwigGeorge Ludwig is a recognized authority on sales strategy and peak performance psychology. An international speaker, trainer, and corporate consultant, he helps clients like Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Northwestern Mutual, CIGNA, and numerous others improve sales force effectiveness and performance. Though it's George's strategies and processes that help corporations increase productivity and performance, it's his tremendous energy and dynamism that spark the transformation. Again and again, clients remark on his amazing ability to unleash human capacity and inspire men and women to break out of their comfort zones. The result is a whole new type of salesperson. His customized presentations teach achievers to make stunning advances in their lives. From helping salespeople realize cherished dreams to helping corporations exponentially accelerate revenue streams, George Ludwig leaves audiences and individuals empowered, emboldened, and clamoring for more. George is the best-selling author of Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking the Sales Code and Wise Moves: 60 Quick Tips to Improve Your Position in Life & Business. - Visit George Ludwig's Website |
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