We have been trying to make progress with sorting out our garden this summer.
It’s not going very well.
The big problem is that we aren’t really sure what we want to do. We have an idea, then another one. Then we go back to the original one. I’ve started a bit of DIY patio restoration, then decided we should get someone in to do it. It goes on like this.
We have actually got some things done and it does look better than it did a couple of months back but we haven’t progressed anywhere near as much as we could have done and there’s been a lot of wasted effort.
In truth, it’s not that important to us and it’s certainly not urgent (and wasting a bit of time in the garden can be good for you)!
When we find the same thing happening though in areas of life, including work, that are very important, this becomes a problem. Question is, what’s the solution?
We can try hard in every individual situation to exercise our best planning and problem-solving skills or we can find / create / customise a system that helps guide us through the process of ALWAYS creating clarity on ALL the things that matter most.
What am I doing with my life?
What am I doing today?
What’s the purpose of our organisation?
What’s the purpose of doing this specific task?
With clear direction we can create a clear plan. With a clear plan we can take positive action. Without clarity, we can never achieve what we want and are capable of.
As Brené Brown puts it,
Clarity is kindness.
It can take a lot of effort to establish your system and more so to turn it into a habit, but it’s absolutely worth it.
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!
We looked previously at how success can be defined as progess towards achieving your own meaningful goals. By that definition, everyone can be (and feel) successful. Going back to where we started looking at goals, this is the perfect antidote to the negative feelings that we can all be susceptible to if we find ourselves measuring our success by comparison with others.
Ok, so success is in our hands if, AND IT’S A BIG IF, we learn to regularly set our own goals. It sounds simple. In many ways it is extremely simple and yet so many aren’t doing it. There are two really important keys here:
Learn a system for goal-setting and customise it to your own needs/style/situation/preference.
Make using that system a habit.
We’ll look now at the steps for setting goals as laid out in the LMI Goal Planning System. Next time we’ll talk about how to make using it a habit.
Before we get into that though, a brief intelude. Could you take a few seconds just to imagine the impact it will have if you get seriously good at this? What if every month for the rest of your life you could identify the most important work and personal goals in your life and work effectively to achieve them?
Ok, back to the system in ten steps.
Define or describe something that you’d like to be better in some way.
Write a specific goal(s) that supports this intent.
List the benefits gained and the potential losses avoided by achieving the goal.
Write down possible obstacles and list potential solutions.
Write detailed action steps and deadlines to achieve the goal.
Integrate the action steps into your planning system.
Determine a method of tracking your progress.
Write affirmations to encourage you and keep you on track.
Develop a visual representation that effectively reminds you of your goal.
Celebrate the accomplishment of meaningful goals
It’s a simple and immensely powerful system where each step plays an important part in making the whole system work.
We talk more about this in the Foundations of Success workshop I run. If what we’ve been looking at around goals is an area you’d like to improve in, and the LMI Goal Planning tools would be helpful, you’d be really welcome to join one of these sessions.
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 isgoal 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.
Yesterday Roisin and I recorded episode 3 of ‘So What About Leadership?’. In this edition we talk about goals and goal setting.
I used to not like goal setting at all. It felt forced and restrictive when I prefer to be relaxed and spontaneous. Turns out I was just not using goals very well! Goal setting is simply the practice of deciding what’s important to you (in all areas of life) and setting a course in that direction. I love it! Hope you enjoy our conversation.;
As the New Year gets under way I have, as I’m sure you have also, been thinking about what lies in store for 2019.
There are the ‘business as usual’ things that just carry on. Wheels set in motion that need little or no extra effort to make happen. None of us begin with a completely blank canvas.
But what of the other?
There are, for sure, plenty of areas when we have scope to make changes. It may be tweaking things slightly, stopping some things completely or beginning something new.
I find it very helpful to use a simple two column format to focus my thoughts: More of… and Less of…
What happened last year that I’d like more of?
What happened last year that I’d like less of?
It’s a great way to stimulate the goal setting process. Here’s a few examples for me that may help get you started:
more helping people achieve meaningful goals
less time in rush-hour traffic
more fun with my kids (especially memorable trips)
less of the admin work involved with the management apprenticeships
less time wasted on my phone (be a better example to my kids!)
more discipline, especially in writing blogs/articles etc
What is it you’d like more of / less of in 2019?
Write it down. Share it with others…and if you need some help (sometimes we know the changes we want to make will require some rigorous, impartial accountability), feel free to drop me a line.
On the radio this morning we heard the news that another cold snap is incoming for next week and we let out a collective weary groan.
My daughter especially is really looking forward to warmer weather and the thought of yet more freezing temperatures after the months of Winter we’ve already had, lowered her mood.
The thing that struck me though as we talked over our bowls of Cornflakes, own-brand Rice Crispies and Gluten-Free Granola was that this was likely to be the last dip before things are well and truly on the up weather-wise.
The mornings are getting lighter, so are the evenings, and we’ve had some warmer days already giving a glimpse of what’s to come. In this context, it was much easier to raise the spirits of the family because they had tangible evidence of things going the way they wanted.
The long, warm days spent in shorts and t-shirts, eating ice-cream after school and water-fights with friends in the street may be some way off yet, but it feels like we’re getting there and that makes enduring the present reality much easier.
The same is true in our work, in our DIY projects, anything really. We function better when we have some tangible indications of progress towards our goals. To do this, we need clear goals of course AND we need to have established definite ways to measure progress towards them. We need regular ‘small victories’ and to get our heads up long enough to notice that the nights are getting lighter and it wasn’t quite so bitter on the platform this morning!
How about taking some time today to pause and notice what tangible progress you’ve made already this year? Share that with your team if you can. Emit a collective sigh of satisfaction….and get back to it… hopefully with a renewed sense of resolve because the end is a little more in sight that you realised.
P.S. I’ve just realised this is one reason I often have the SatNav on even when I know where I’m going – I like to see the progress as the miles are covered and the destination draws closer. Counting down the miles is strangely satisfying!
Two weeks ago I had the privilege of spending a few days with many of my LMI colleagues from around the world at our annual convention in Florence. Our flight from London went into Pisa so, having never set foot in Italy before, it would have been rude not to stop and have a look around. As every good tourist does in that small-ish Italian town, we headed in what seemed like the direction of that world-famous wonky tower.
It’s more wonky that I thought!
You can’t see the tower from miles away so it came as quite a shock when we rounded a corner and there it was, leaning away, just like in the pictures. Having seen it’s picture dozens of times, I was still amazed, when confronted with it in real life, at just how much it leans. It’s impressive!
Something I then found very interesting. The closer I got to it, the less obvious it’s lean became. It’s basic physics I know, but these things make an impact when you experience them first hand. Close up, it could almost be straight. Start walking away and look back, it’s lean becomes stark once again.
Lots in our lives and our businesses can be like this. We get so involved, so consumed by the the day-to-day demands, so ‘close’ to all that’s going on, we don’t notice how wonky it is.
When I look at the pictures I’m reminded to step back and notice where things may have become a little wonky.
Am I working too many hours & have lost balance?
Have I stopped being so careful about prioritising my work?
Are my goals a little out of focus?
Has our passion for great customer service dropped off a little?
Whatever ‘stepping back’ means for you at the moment, it’s well worth doing. And when you notice something’s wonky, get help to fix it (unless it’s so extraordinary that you can get rich off people coming to see it)!
We often define change that we’d like to see, even implement change in a positive way. But how many times do things waver or even completely disintegrate so that 2 years, 2 months, even 2 weeks later, the initial enthusiasm and adherence of the new way has evaporated and things are back the way there were before.
In this video, taken from the Foundations of Success Workshop, I share one of LMI’s foundational concepts – the critical importance of securing lasting change through spaced repetition.
The old classics – Monopoly, Cluedo, Scrabble. There are some fantastic new kids on the block, our current favourite being Sequence.
One of the kids’ birthdays recently yielded a new delight – a game called Scotland Yard. There is great excitement in the house when a new game is being unveiled and the learning of the rules followed by those first few run-throughs is an almost-sacred ritual!
On this occasion I was not around when the cellophane was pierced and the game learnt. Neither was I present for the second and third outings. The rest of Team Howes had become fairly well versed in this new entertainment and I was at a significant disadvantage.
Finally I get to play and the kids explain the rules to me. This piece moves here. This card does that. You can’t lay this card when that happens. You must collect six of these before you can do this.
Ok, I think I understand the rules. But what’s the aim of the game? How do I win?
This was the bit that was not so well explained by the kids in their eagerness to get started…and beat me!
I find myself in the middle of the game, asking questions as we go and squinting at the tiny instructions without my glasses to try and make sense as we went along as to how the game eventually gets won.
Work can feel like that. Sometimes for the owners / leaders…often for staff. I know what I’m supposed to be getting on with, but how do we win? What does success look like? How does today, or this week really count?
We want (and for our own well-being, need) to succeed. Victories keep us fresh, energised and creative. Knowing the rules without having a clear and imminent sense of a goal to reach, a finish line to cross, it’s drudgery and no-wonder the productivity levels aren’t what they could be.
Whether it’s for yourself, or for those you lead, make it clear where the next finish lines to cross are, and make a deal of it when the tape is broken. Mine today was a short list of ‘Must do today’ tasks, the last of which was writing this blog. My prize – I’m off to make a fresh pot of very nice coffee!
Posted by nick howes 
My daughter especially is really looking forward to warmer weather and the thought of yet more freezing temperatures after the months of Winter we’ve already had, lowered her mood.
Nick Howes 