Learning from victories

November 11, 2022

If you do an LMI programme, you’ll see every single one has a tab (or a file if you have a digital version) labelled ‘Accomplishments’. Over the 13 years that I’ve been working with these programmes, this has consistently been the least-used part of the whole system.

Setting goals, planning days weeks and months, using communication tools, identifying areas for improvement and practicing coaching conversations have all been routinely embraced, but not this little section at the back of the manual.

It seems that reflecting on our successes doesn’t come naturally to most of us. Like anything that’s good for you, it’s something to be practiced. And doing this is certainly good for you, I think for two major reasons:

  • It’s great to enjoy, gain satisfaction and be motivated for the future by what we have achieved
  • Those accomplishments are great for informing us about what we should be doing more of.

A little more on that second reason.

When we routinely and systematically keep an accomplishments log, whether individually or as part of a team, it provides loads of great information that can help us plan for the future if we take the time to reflect.

What did I/we do (if anything) in order for that to come about? How can we do more of that? What similar actions might lead to similar positive results? The end result points us back to the origins of those outcomes.

We are taught from childhood, and rightly so, to learn from our mistakes. Maybe it’s just as important to learn from our victories as well.

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Posted by nick howes

Rediscovering #Mission168

October 11, 2022

It’s time to rediscover and reactivate the blog, and specifically the Mission168 hashtag which is embedded in my banner image.

#Mission168 is about making the most of every single week, each gathered cluster of 168 hours. Since I last wrote, I’ve come across Oliver Burkeman’s excellent book, “Four Thousand Weeks” which I have listened to on audiobook at least twice. I very much share his thoughts about productivity and fulfilment coming not from constantly seeking to do as much as we possibly can, but from ’embracing finitude’ and accepting we can’t do everything.

I absolutely love Burkeman’s phrase, “the joy of missing out” – i.e. I have consciously chosen to do what I am now doing and gladly embrace the fact that I am not doing everything else that I could possibly be doing instead!

All this has been brought to the front of mind by a few recent conversations with clients centred around the power of the weekly plan. In LMI we use a very simple form called ‘Time Picture’ or ‘My Ideal Week.’

It’s outrageously simple, prompting the user to complete a plan that outlines what they would like to include in their ideal week. Here’s the thing I love about this excercise. Nearly everyone I speak to feels busy and overstretched. Almost all have things they’d like to be doing – specific, important things around health, family, community, wellbeing and work – that they currently don’t have time for and yet, when you start to map these activities onto the 168 hour slots in the weekly plan, including plenty of time for sleep, eating, travel etc, they almost always fit, with plenty to spare.

If you’d like to have a go at completing your own Time Picture, get in touch and I’ll send you a copy.

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Posted by nick howes

The day-to-day disciplines of leadership

June 22, 2020

In this latest episode of So What About Leadership? Roisin and I discuss the less exciting but incredibly important aspects of leadership like discipline, process and systemisation. Hope you enjoy!

LMI UK & Ireland · So What About Leadership 18.6.20

 

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Posted by nick howes

Do what you always do, but different.

June 1, 2020

It’s the start of a new month, June 2020. We are in a period of history that none of us will ever forget. Remember February this year? How different does that seem now?

The times are changing again; the rules are flexing. Who knows what the world – your world – will look like in another four months!

So, as we start a new month, indecision and uncertainty can easily payalyse us.

Because there’s so much you don’t know, how can you possibly make plans? How can you take action when you don’t know whether they’ll be the ‘right’ actions given the changing circumstances?

All valid questions. So what should you do?

Answer: do the same as you always do, but different.

Go to your system – the one you use every month to review the previous and plan the next. The system that helps you set goals and establish priorities for the next four weeks. The system that helps you set up progress tracking towards your goals and recording your success with the habits you’re working on developing.  The system that you rely on to make sure you schedule time for your high payoff activities and reminds you of your ‘big picture’ (purpose, mission and values) so the vision of what you are living for is crystal clear.

Such a planning system is absolute gold. Most people had them in the 80s and 90s. Their large, leather-bound organisers with templates for setting goals, making plans, communicating well and remembering to spend time doing the most important things, day by day, week by week, month by month.

Then we went all technological. We moved on.

But we didn’t take our systems with us into the new media. We left them behind and with it a whole heap of healthy habits were lost.

If you’re reading this and you don’t have a brilliant system for planning June 2020, we need to do something about that. You see, when you have a system that you know inside-out, one that you’ve used time and time again, it’s much, much easier to adapt to changing times. Just follow the process but with different inputs. I can’t do X this month, but I can do Y. A and B may be uncertain, so I’ll focus extra effort on C because that’s within my control.

I’ll end simply with this: get a system. LMI have a brilliant one and I’m always happy to share that. You can design your own if you’re so inclined. Buy one – Best Self Planner is a great option – borrow one, phone a friend. By any means, get a system that works for you. Then you can do the same, month by month, every month, but different.

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Posted by nick howes

Love don’t come easy…

April 2, 2020

…and neither does building a new habit!

My intention, as you know if you’ve read the previous couple of posts, is to write every day. It doesn’t have to be long, but it does have to be every day.

You’ll notice that I failed!

This is my first post this week and it’s Thursday morning. Thing is, writing hasn’t been a habit recently and thinking you can just start something new and stick with it is unrealistic.

It’s one of the core ideas I share almost weekly in the Foundations of Success workshop – to create lasting change you have to build a habit. To build a habit you need to change behaviour. To change behaviour you have to form new attitudes – ways of thinking – and you do this by conditioning – the practice of spaced repetition. The repeated exposure to ideas and activity that changes the way we think and behave for the long term.

To build a habit we have to build some infrastructure. I hadn’t done this. I have now. I’ve written the goal. I’ve set up a tracking sheet. ‘Writing’ now appears on my day plan ‘Must do today’ list.

As you know, none of this guarantees success, but it gives me a much better chance if I stick to the pattern.

In these days when you have to adapt and live differently, what is one new daily habit that you’d like to develop that might just change your life…or that of others? Worth thinking about.

All the best,

Nick

Leave a Comment » | Attitude, Change, General, habits, Personal Leadership, success | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by nick howes