That’s a very personal question

May 4, 2020

Learn a new skill.

Get iron-man fit.

Write a book.

Run a high-performing home-school academy!

There’s so much talk about what we could and should be doing during lockdown and equally as much talk about people feeling guilty / inferior / down because they are not achieving what others seem to be doing during this time.

My last-but-one post about empathy is super-important here.

Just as important though is to recognise why we experience these negative feelings about what we’re not doing. This is a complex issue however one common reason is that we’re not confident in what we are doing.

This is why the art of goal setting is such an important skill.

Paul J. Meyer said,

Success is the progressive realisation of worthwhile, pretermined, personal goals.

In other words,

Success is goal directed action

and

Success is personal.

When I’m good at setting my own goals, whatever they may be, I feel successful when I’m making progress towards achieving them. When I’m focussed on my own goals and I’m feeling good about working towards those, I’m far less likely to be worried about what others are doing and what I’m not doing.

It’s a big subject so more on this next time when we’ll look at how to set goals that actually work for you whatever you’re facing right now.

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Posted by nick howes

Making friends with failure

July 3, 2018

It’s an issue I find myself constantly facing with my own kids, as well as in many situations with the managers and leaders I work with. Fear of failure stops people from achieving what they are capable of. We must realise that failure is inevitable if we are to learn and improve.

With my kids it often comes out as “I’m not very good at…”, or “I can’t do…” and I hate it! Of course some things will come easier to them than others but there is almost nothing that they couldn’t become really good at if they seriously wanted to and put in plenty of hard work.

YouareAwesomeI’m really enjoy Matthew Syed’s writing on this subject. First with ‘Black Box Thinking’ and then in his book for children called ‘You Are Awesome’. In this work he speaks to children about how you get really good at something. Sure there has to be a little bit of natural ability to begin with but then it’s down to practice, hard work and, most importantly, getting comfortable with the idea that to improve you have to fail. You have to try something and it not work as you’d hoped…so you try again. And again. And again.

Whether it’s a new marketing strategy or learning Italian – making friends with failure (also known as learning to get it right) is essential. Cue the Thomas Edison light bulb quote!

I find this challenging as I realise I am just as prone to to failure avoidance as my kids. Head down; keep going; keep the end in mind.

 

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Posted by nick howes

The start of something big!

October 29, 2013

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Today I am starting to blog a series of reflections about confidence because over the last couple of years I’ve formed the opinion that its probably the single biggest factor in how much of what we are capable of achieving, we actually do go on and accomplish.
 
Whether you agree with this or not, I hope you find my musings helpful.
 
I’ve watched my kids doing homework and noticed that the same tasks can either drag for seemingly hours of hard, slow, painful effort, or be whizzed through in no time…and largely this has been down not to their ability to do the tasks, but their confidence in their ability to do the tasks.
 
I’ve watched people in business not achieve due to massive lack of confidence in their ability to go out and make the right things happen. I’ve then watched others with less obvious talent and ability, but with much higher confidence levels, set about massively outperforming their less confident counterparts.
 
I also notice this in myself too. I notice it in sport, in TV talent shows and in social situations.
 
It’s huge, and I thought I’d write about it! More tomorrow.
 
 

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Posted by nick howes