Taking Action is the single most important aspect of getting results. Without this part of the equation nothing is realistically possible. It’s true that you need a goal, a sense of direction to work towards, but you can plan your path to your hearts content, but if you don’t then take action, all that planning isn’t going to materialise into your reality.
We have all been guilty of procrastinating, this often manifests as over-planning. keeping busy devising a goal, and perfecting a plan of action, then tweaking and re-tweaking.
Get Results: Doing is the greatest teacher
Ultimately it’s prudent to have a goal, fashion a plan that can best be described as a “minimum viable outline plan”. Something that gives you a sense of direction, so that you’re not floating around aimlessly but allows you to retain some level of flexibility going forward.
You should progress with a open mind and open heart, and learn from your experience moving forward.
Successful software developers have long since understood the value of producing a minimum viable product, getting it out in the market, and enhancing it via feedback from customers. That way the market helps in the development process in a real world environment for which it was intended. This approach prevents wasted time developing and realising later it has been overdeveloped or developed in the wrong aspects. Letting the end user decide what they want makes sense commercially. Think of it as a collaboration between developer and customer.
And so it should be as you move forwards towards your goal, let the real world give you feedback as you progress. You take action and the world around you reacts in all sorts of unforeseen ways. Whether it be serendipitous encounters with influential individuals, or insights you could never of expected had you not taken action.
Purposeful right action is an even better way to describe it, because you are working towards something, you measure your progress or lack of, tweak and test as you go. Think of it as if you were learning a skill, lets take driving for instance, your instructor watches what you do, informs you when doing something wrong, watches you do it again, corrects if necessary or lets you know you’ve completed the manoeuvre correctly.
It’s true to say that some people are more naturally talented then others, they have physical attributes that might make it easier for them to be successful, but natural talent is just a head start, whether or not you are naturally talented there is no doubt that taking action or practice has it’s also known improves performance.
The 10 thousand hour rule is routinely quoted as being the time it takes to become an expert in most endeavours, a 20 hour rule is also quoted as being the time it take to become proficient at something. The fact is the more you purposely practice or “do” something the better you will get at it.
Ask the focus question as a compass
A good way of focusing your actions so that you don’t waste time doing none important tasks and as a result make sure you’re taking “right” action at all times is to ask this question…
“What’s the one thing you can do now such by doing it, everything else will easier or unnecessary?”
get results: what’s the one thing
It’s a great question for bringing some perspective to each situation you find yourself in, using like you would a compass, when you feel lost or confused about what needs doing next.
Mini-goals
Another way of ensuring the action you take today is moving you towards your goal is setting up mini-goals, that line up with one another like a pathway to your end goal. for instance have weekly goals that that leads towards achieving a monthly goal, that leads to a 6 monthly goal, that leads to a yearly goal that leads towards a 3 year goal and so on. Line each mini-goal up like you would when domino toppling, knock your weekly goals down and that automatically knocks the monthly goal down and so on.
Summary
So TAKING ACTION is an essential step in achieving any goal, it is probably the most important step, but taking action without direction and purpose is rather like floating at sea without a rudder. Have a goal and take action towards that goal. Have an outline plan but know that you should allow some flexibility as you go. Keep focus by asking the focus question, and use mini goals to keep you heading in the right direction. oh yes and enjoy the journey. Life is a journey, it isn’t a destination after all.
Self improvement or self development as its also known, is key to improving the quality of your life. Jim Rohn said it best when he said “You can have more than you’ve got, because you can become more than you are. The other side of this coin is unless you change what you are, you’ll always have what you got.”
#1 Emotional Intelligence
One way to improve yourself and your results is improving your Emotional intelligence. Emotional Intelligence is seen as a predictor of highly successful people. Individuals that are high in Emotional Intelligence tend to be emotionally balanced, in tune with their gut instinct. They have an innate ability to listen, empathise, creatively problem-solve, and understand the why behind the actions of others. Gary Vaynerchuk is a strong advocate of Emotional Intelligence, he believes it to be one of his greatest strengths, and key to his success.
Gratitude
Get Results: Gratitude
One way of tapping into your Emotional Intelligence is to give gratitude for what you already have. Lets call it an appreciation perspective. If you live a life of striving, it’s really easy to get lost in that striving. You are always looking to the future to find happiness, and as a result you are internally torn between where you are now and where you want to be.
This can lead to negative emotions, even chronic negative emotions such as anger, frustration, despair. Such emotions can adversely impact the quality of your life, even ruin it. While motivation is indeed key to driving action, you shouldn’t allow it to get out of control.
I recommend using gratitude to help you gain perspective. We can all benefit from remembering we are here by the grace of god. Our lives can be cut short at any moment, that alone is worth a great deal of gratitude. If you are healthy, mentally and physically, again you have a great deal to feel blessed about. If you find it hard to internalise such gratitude simply by thinking about it, do a few weeks volunteering at a local kids cancer unit, hospice, or care home to gain some much needed perspective.
Manage Stress
Another way of managing Emotional Intelligence is by managing Stress. Stress is caused by a fear of “a future potential devaluation in your sense of self”. You might fear there is a gap in your ability and the requirements of a future event, in other words you might fear you aren’t going to be strong enough, smart enough, wealthy enough, or good enough to cope with something that might (or might not) happen sometime in the future. Often the worry is greater than the actual event. Stop telling yourself stories and embellishing the downsides and worst case scenarios, instead be aware of the risk and try to mitigate it as much as possible, there are always ways around obstacles. Worry and fear are thoughts and only exist in your mind. When the event comes round you will either find you can deal with it much better than you anticipated, or that it doesn’t turn out to be half as bad as you thought it would be. This happens ninety nine times out of a hundred.
Become Self Aware
Get Results: self awareness
Another way of improving Emotional intelligence is by being Self aware. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses. Knowing what you like to do and don’t like to do. Instead of burying your head in the sand and trying to ignore these things, be honest and open with yourself. Confront them head on and work out the best way to either overcome them or find a work-around solution.
Self Reflection
Something that is closely related to self awareness is self reflection. Honestly auditing yourself, your thoughts, your actions, your performance, your results good and bad. Stand up to them. There is no failure in life, failure is a chance to learn something, make yourself better and move on.
Work on self first then observe others
To improve emotional intelligence you need to work first on yourself. Once you open yourself up to honest analysis, you will see with greater clarity what shapes the actions of other people around you. You will understand their motives better. You will pick up on the subtle signals and be able to read between the lines. You should as a result be more empathetic, more open to communication, by listening better you learn much more. Empathy is one of the greatest skills you can develop in your personal and business life.
Develop a Feedback Loop
Get Results: feedback builds champions
As part of your growth, you should be open to, even encourage constructive criticism from people you trust. Encourage a feedback loop that helps you improve your game. Now this part comes with a caveat. You should have a strong sense of what you are about, who you are, what you want. Otherwise you can easily be manipulated into following other peoples agendas, or take on their insecurities and fears.
Its also important to understand that you are not going to get on, or be liked by everyone you meet, there will always be haters. “Haters gotta hate” as the saying goes, and it’s important to not let these people chip away at your self-esteem simply because they don’t want you to get on in life, or want to bring you do a peg or two. Ignore the views of these people, they don’t understand you and their opinion isn’t relevant, they probably have their own internal issues shaping their view.
Encourage honest, constructive feedback from people you genuinely trust and respect. Close family are not usually good for this because often they project their own fear and insecurities onto you and what you are trying to do, they don’t want you to get hurt so tell you not to do it. Instead of turning to family, try to find mentors or role models that have done what you want to do and encourage them to share their experience, and advice with you.
Assume the Best in Others’
Assuming the best in others is another way of improving your emotional intelligence. The human condition is driven by the need to avoid pain and desire to be more. This condition makes people irrational, isolated, and selfish. Most people operate in this mode almost unconsciously. It is their self preservation instincts that are ruling their behaviour, and we shouldn’t mistake this to be who they are. People are good at heart, they are possessed by their Ego’s, for more about this check out my wellbeing guide.
Become a Giver
One last point about emotional intelligence is one of becoming a Giver. Give back, or just give. The world would be so much better if people were more giving. Giving of their time, their attention, their love, their patience, their understanding. Looking at each of your relationships from a “what can I give to this person” will open up a vastly more expansive life than you currently live.
#2 Having a Strong work Ethic
Having a strong work ethic is also vital when it comes to self improvement. If you’re not willing to invest the time and effort in working on yourself, than you’ll just have to be content with where you are and what you have now. Gary Vaynerchuk advocates “working your ass off” to get what you want in life. “Hustling” your way towards you goal, instead of watching every episode of House of Cards. If you’re not where you want to be, the only way to get there is, to take action, massive action. The maths is simple, there are 24 hours in a day, if you sleep for 8, that leaves 16 hours. If you work 9 of those hours, you still have 7 hours to work on developing yourself.
While having a good work ethic is important, it’s not just about putting the time in but rather it’s about working smart. It’s about being effective rather than busy. Jim Rohn says “Don’t spend major time on minor things”, and this is so true. Success won’t come from hustling 16 hours a day unless you’re doing the right things during that time.
In his book “The One Thing”, Gary Keller offers up a great focusing question that you can ask yourself and keep asking yourself to make sure you’re not wasting your time on unimportant activities. “What’s the one thing you can do now, such by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary”. I’m not going to go into detail about this question here. If you want a detailed explanation, check out the book for yourself below
The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results
get results: what’s the one thing
#3 Work on your strengths
Focus on developing your strengths rather than wasting time on bringing your weaknesses up to speed. Gary Vaynerchuk advocates “doubling down on your strengths and punting your weaknesses”. It’s good advice, even though it goes against the conventional advice of working on your weaknesses. Why is it good advice? Well because generally your strengths will be the activities you are naturally inclined towards. They are likely to be things you enjoy doing, and as a result will be more willing to do going forward. There is generally a reason why you do what you do and don’t do what you don’t do. It comes back to self awareness and knowing yourself better.
So it’s vitally important to know what you’re good at and not so good at. for instance, not everyone is cut out for business and being an entrepreneur, just because it’s the sexy thing to do at the moment, doesn’t mean you should do it. Be honest with yourself.
Stay in your lane, make your knowledge deep and narrow, rather than wide and shallow. To stand out you should aim to be exceptional at one thing rather than average at a lot of different things.
Summary
So there you have it, work hard to improve yourself. Consider it a lifelong project, one that you will never actually finish, but which keeps you pushing yourself to be a better person throughout your entire life. Be a master of what you know and a student of what you don’t know. Never take the view that you know all that you need to know, never. Be open to new ideas, open to new ways of doing things. Don’t be content with doing things the best you can do them, but aim to do them the best way they can be done. Most of all enjoy your personal journey of self improvement.
Check out our Ultimate guides for some self help information.
I use this model of analysis to help me achieve my goals by formulating a clear actionable plan
#1- Goal Setting
What do I want to do/achieve?
Do I know clearly enough what my goal is?
If I don’t know clearly, it will be hard to work out a plan. You must have a defined goal so that a plan can lead to its attainment. It’s ok if that goal moves along the journey, but have a goal before you make a start.
#2- Current Cause and Effect
What am I doing currently?
What is happening/not happening?
Why is it happening/not happening?
There should be a clear cause and effect to follow. Do this and this will happen. If not then clarify the plan further if possible.
#3- Remedial action
What can I do to correct?
What am I missing/not knowing which is important?
What am I not doing that I need to do?
Now that I’ve laid out the structure of the model, let’s have a closer look at this model of analysis in more detail:
Goal
What do you want to do/achieve?
Do you know clearly enough?
knowing what you want to achieve (having a goal) is crucial to developing an actionable plan to make it happen, but think about it in enough detail so that a plan to achieve it is crystal clear. Check out the example below for more clarity about what I mean.
Lets assume your goal is to make more money. There are a number of ways to look at this, what most people mean when they say they want more money is have more money in their pocket after they have paid the bills.
Now this can be achieved two ways, by making more money (increase in income) or saving money they pay out for bills etc.
Saving money is often easier to do then earning more, so we’ll cover this first. Now there are those essential things we have to pay, like rent / mortgage and utilities, which you can’t avoid but which you could look to reduce the cost of, by shopping around for cheaper suppliers, lower tariffs etc. It’s not exciting but it can really put extra money in your pocket if you take the time out to shop around.
For other costs/expenses, try to cut out the ones that are none essential, and that don’t add some enjoyment or value to your life. That’s the criteria I use for expenses.
Is it essential?
Is it adding value to my life?
If the answer is no to both of these questions, get rid of it. If you have debts like loans etc, pay these off as a matter of priority, don’t fail to pay them back, because this is both morally wrong and can affect your credit rating in the future. If you’ve done the crime do the time, so to speak. Just don’t be in a hurry replacing this debt with more debt in the future.
Imagine if you had no bills to pay and every pay cheque that came through the door was yours to keep and enjoy. When people earn more money they tend to take on more debt, they buy a bigger house and nicer car etc. All this does is keep you having to grind away to pay these things off. Once you have the nice car or nice house do you really feel happier? Really? If they do make you happier, then while they are none essentials they are adding value/enjoyment to your life, which is fine.
Earning more money on the other hand is dependent on the skills and knowledge you possess. Learning new higher-paying-skills, working more hours, and /or earning extra income on the side will help you earn more. There is no magic bullet here. Have a plan and work the plan based on your preferences, skill base and motivation levels.
So having the goal of simply “earning more money” isn’t going to be clear enough. By digging deeper into what this involves, will help you work out what options are open to you.
If you don’t know clearly enough, you will have difficulty working out a plan to attain it. Clearly defined goals make the plan easier to formulate and follow through to conclusion.
Current cause and effect
What are you doing currently?
What is happening/not happening?
Why is it happening/not happening?
There should be a clear cause and effect to follow. If I do this… this will happen. If not then clarify the plan further. There are never any guarantees, there is an element of risk to whatever you do, but progress on a best guess basis.
Look at what you’re doing now to achieve your plan. We are looking for a clear cause and effect. You do X and Y happens. Working backwards can sometimes help with each stage. So for instance, if you want to save money, but you’re not currently doing so, then, look to see if you are taking the necessary actions that will lead to this goal being realised, because it’s not going to happen otherwise.
You have to make it happen. Have you looked at what you’re paying for bills? Have you shopped around for cheaper alternatives? Action is key here. Doing what needs to be done to achieve the goal.
Remedial action
What should you do to correct?
What are you missing/not knowing which is important?
What are you not doing that you need to do?
Use something like the decision matrix to determine amongst alternative options, problem solving techniques to work out a way are around obstacles. Use role models to see if you are missing something, look at the models, systems, habits and relationships they use to achieve what you want to achieve.
Summary
This article is designed to make you think with more clarity about your goals and plan of action so that you can formulate and take actionable steps to make it happen. Empowering yourself to find the solutions you are looking for, rather than feeling you have no control about how things turn out.
It’s true that sometimes things don’t work out how you wanted them to, but I have found that having a goal, and a clear actionable plan to achieve it will move you in the right direction. Being flexible in your journey is fine, as long as you know the end destination.. A crystal clear goal makes the plan easier to formulate.
Having a goal of “Making more money” can involve earning extra income or having more money in your pocket at the end of the month by saving. If what you mean is actually having more money in your pocket at the end of the month, then this suddenly opens up extra options including saving on expenses. Be clear what you mean and by do so you find the options open up to you more clearly.
Hope you find this article informative and thought provoking. Please share if you did, thanks.
When we are small children, we learn by copying others. And if you have children of your own, or are ever around them, you know they tend to copy whatever you do.
Sometimes it’s cute, sometimes it can be embarrassing.
Throughout mankind’s history, most “learning” has come from copying.
For instance, if you want to learn a trade, you need to work with a skilled and qualified trades-person and be their apprentice, slowly learning the ins and outs under their close supervision.
NLP modeling works on the same principle of finding someone that is expert in what you want to do, and then copying them. You have to copy everything they do, not just their actions but their thought processes, and reasoning.
Obviously, the more complicated the skills required, the more difficult it is to copy them.
One crucial aspect of learning is the need to make mistakes, and to learn from them going forward, because no matter who you are modeling, they can’t have achieved any level of success without a significant amount of trial and error. Or as they say in NLP, “Trial and Feedback.”
Unfortunately, many people like to be told exactly what to do in the hope it will relieve them from making any mistakes.
“I’m ready for success! I’m ready to take action! Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it!”
But they discover the “secret” is to simply keep trying until they get it right, unfortunately most people don’t like this idea so much.
Sure, modeling can help. It can speed-up the process. But being willing to accept any “result” no matter how “good” or “bad” is required for any kind of real success to take place.
This may be the reason why most people are always looking for the next “big secret.”
They would rather wait their entire lives for somebody to tell them what to do, and guide them step-by-step, rather than simply taking action and seeing what happens.
Sure, it can be terrifying taking action. But it is also incredibly liberating. As you’ve likely realized from time to time, most of our deepest fears never actually materialise.
So when you do “wing it” just to “see what happens,” it’s rarely even close to what you feared could happen, and each time you try something, and accept whatever happens as valuable feedback, you will learn something.
Sure, often times you’ll learn what not to do, but this creates a foundation to build on and allows you to learn from your experience and at a much deeper psychological level.
Equally important is the deep knowledge that trying and “failing” isn’t so bad.
It can actually be kind of fun, as long as you have a clear idea of where you’d like to be eventually, and the persistence to keep going no matter what, you’ll not only get there, but have a lot of fun in the meantime.
Whilst developing a model for getting results in selling and sales, I found myself wondering about what people currently tend to spend their hard earned money on. I wanted to know if we tended to spend money on particular types of things over others and if they aligned with their long term goals. It led me to thinking about what similarities and differences existed in our spending habits. I came to the following conclusions.
As human beings we find ourselves trading our most valuable resource, time, in the pursuit of money, so that we can trade it for things we need or want. There seems to me to be only three broad types of spending that we undertake, they are…
Spending to “Consume“
Spending to (exclusively) “Use“
Spending to “Accumulate” (gain more money or wealth)
Spending to “Consume”
Spending to consume covers things we buy that are consumed in the process of using them. They are only used once, and then they are gone. Consumable purchases are frequently experiential in nature, but not always, and include things like food, and drink, and holidaying. Once they are consumed, they are gone.
We may spend our money in a fancy restaurant, buy a take-away or prepare a meal ourselves at home, and for slightly differing reasons. In a restaurant, our priority may be to enjoy the food, but additionally we want to take-in the ambience and enjoy the company we share it with. It becomes more of an experience than just eating in, and as a result we pay more for it, and are usually happy to do so.
Holiday’s also fall under this category along with everyday things like paying for petrol, electricity, gas, ink or toner for a printer, phone call minutes, insurance, and fares, such as flight or bus and train charges. Gifts also falls under this category, we buy it once and after the enjoyment of giving it to the recipient, the value to us, has been used up, we can’t give it to them twice.
Spending to (exclusively) “Use”
We spend to exclusively use many things, these are things we pay for and then use over and over until they are damaged, wear out or are superseded. Things in this category include the clothes we wear, the furniture we furnish our homes with, even the house we live in, and the car that sits on the driveway. There is generally more longevity to these purchases and on the surface probably offer more value for money. I earlier stated that holidays fall under the “purchase to consume” category, but buying a holiday home, would come under the “spending to use” category, because once purchased it can be used again and again.
You can buy things that appreciate in value like a home, or jewellery or art, or that depreciate in value such as clothes and vehicles.
If we lack the finances to purchase the item outright we can choose to rent or lease many big ticket items, such as cars or houses.
Spending to “Accumulate”
Spending to accumulate covers things like investment purchases which are aimed to make more money. Stocks and shares, property you flip or rent out are included in this category. If you run a business than marketing falls under this category as well as asset purchases. Other things may include websites, businesses, land, property, art, jewellery, precious metals, limited editions, and antiques that are bought to make money from.
Some of these items may also come under other categories. For instance jewellery can be purchased to use yourself and as an investment to sell on at a profit when you have finished with it. Your home also can be used in this way. So some purchases are not mutually exclusive to just one category.
If I look at many of the things I spend my money on I see this….
Mortgage – accumulate
Utilities – consume
Digital TV -consume
Phone – consume
Car use – consume
Insurance- consume
Food and drink include – consume
Holidays – consume
Clothes – use
Furniture – use
Home improvements – use
Studio Rent – comes under all categories, use (rental cost) consume (use the facilities over and over) accumulate (for business)
Cinema concerts – consume
Gifts – consume
Interest payments on loan’s allow you to enjoy the use of something or consume something or accumulate a return, so comes attached to the thing you buy with the money you borrow. If I was to put the actual interest payment under one of the above categories I would opt to put in under consume category, because you can only use it once, and then you pay again.
Having formulated these categories, I wondered which type of purchase offered the best value for money, which led me to ask the following question…
Are experiences better than having possessions?
Experiential purchases largely fall under the first category “Spending to “Consume”, where possessions tend to fall under the “spending to use” category.
Research seems to suggest that experiences are better than possessions for our well-being. although this runs against popular advice. We are taught that buying appreciating assets will make us wealthier because they will be worth more in the future than we paid for them (purchase to accumulate category). Whereas we will have nothing to show from spending to consume. But if we look at it in a different way, at the end of our lives will we look back and value the experiences we enjoyed or the possessions we used?
Dr. Thomas Gilovich, a psychology professor at Cornell University who has been studying the question of money and happiness for over two decades says…
“Our experiences are a bigger part of ourselves than our material goods. You can really like your material stuff. You can even think that part of your identity is connected to those things, but nonetheless they remain separate from you. In contrast, your experiences really are part of you. We are the sum total of our experiences.”
“We consume experiences directly with other people,” says Gilovich. “And after they’re gone, they’re part of the stories that we tell to one another.”
A few popular quotes on the subject are…
“Fill your life with experiences, not things, Have stories to tell, not stuff to show.”
“collect memories, not things.”
“The person who has lived the most is not the one with the most years but the one with the riches life experiences.”
I couldn’t find any quotes that made the claim that having possession was better than having experiences, but I guess it is a subjective judgement for individuals to make.
So what’s the point in using these categories?
Well, I think it’s useful to use these categorise so that we can see the underlying value we derive from our spending habits and see if they align with our wider, longer term goals. We spend a good portion of our lives trying to earn money, so that we can buy the things we want to buy. but do we take any time out to really think about what we are actually buying and why? If you find you’re spending more of your money on consumable purchases, whilst trying to accumulate wealth, are your spending habits helping in the attainment of your wealth seeking goal? not really. In this example you would be much more successful adopting a “spending to accumulate” strategy. Okay, you still have to buy food and drink to survive, but instead of buying those concert tickets, maybe you should move that money into the “accumulation” category of spending.
If your long term goal is to enjoy the great experiences of life, as the research suggests, things like going on holiday or experiencing new things, and new people then some form of experiential purchase may be the way to go, and just something to think about here, many experiences, like enjoying the beauty of nature, don’t have to cost you anything, they are freely available for all, you just have to take the time out and be present and appreciative enough to enjoy them.
I hope using these categories will give you a different perspective to view your purchasing habits from, and allow you to take a more critical view of them.
Remember the most precious resource we have is time, you should ensure it is utilised well, and for a worthy enough purpose. Trading time for money is a must for most of us, so make sure you don’t fritter away your dosh on things that are not really worth the time you invested in earning it.
So why is it you aren’t getting results? Why did something not work out for you? Why did you fail to achieve a goal?
Is it because you aren’t capable? You haven’t got the necessary skills to be effective? You just can’t figure out what went wrong,? Well if you said yes to any of these questions, you might be tempted to throw your hands in the air, give it up as a fail, and move onto something else.
Stay stuck
The trouble with this approach is, you will inevitably reach this point again, maybe not in relation to what you have done this time, but for sure, you will for something else, and what will you do then, give up and move onto something else and so it continues. You’re hitting the outer barrier of your capability and failing to push past it. If you can’t break through this barrier you’ll have to be content with your present situation. Be grateful for what you have, and settle for that, and many people do just that, they settle.
Lack of resources
When asked why they failed to achieve something, or why they did not achieve their goal, people often say that they didn’t know enough, didn’t have the knowledge, know-how, didn’t have enough time, money, or they didn’t get the right support from colleagues, family members or friends. What they mean by this is they didn’t have the resources. Time, money, knowledge, motivation, and support are all resources.
RESOURCEFULNESS is what counts
The truth is, it’s not a lack of resources that’s the problem, although these may indeed be lacking, but it’s resourcefulness which is missing, and this is the defining factor of failure. Resourcefulness comes from being in touch with your emotions. It’s emotions that drive you to take action.
We must tap into our passions and desires, find inspiration to pursue a cause bigger than us, we must desire the end goal enough to be driven forward, and have enough grit and determination to push through any obstacle that we will inevitable encounter.
Find MEANING in what you do
How do we do this? Well for a start we must make our actions meaningful by aligning them to a meaningful goal. Each action should contribute to the acquisition of that goal, steady but sure. Aim for a goal that is deeply desired, with great passion. A goal that challenges us, and is specific enough that we can clearly define it to ourselves.
Seek MASTERY
We must understand and believe that ability is not fixed or gifted, but comes from practice, repetition and the pursuit of excellence. Having a growth mindset will motivate progress, and help banish thoughts of having limitations. Be a master of what you know and an apprentice of what you don’t. Seek functional excellence in your chosen pursuit, and know that the only limitations we have are those we impose on ourselves or allow others to talk us into believing.
Be Creative
Being creative is about remaining open minded, and having the ability to stand back and see things from a different perspective, making the most of your resources (strengths, abilities, knowledge, tools, networks), You need to be able to look at your situation from a variety of angles and perspectives and then make use of what you have at your disposal to help resolve your problem. Look for ways to apply unrelated ways of doing things to your situation. Many innovative new products or services have made use of this approach, rather than trying to come up with something completely new. Why try to reinvent the wheel, when you can build on the work done by others.
Be Proactive
Take responsibility, if you try to blame others, you relinquish your power to take the initiative. Be on the front foot, rather than waiting for things to drop in your lap or come to you.
Be Connected
Being connected to information and people is a must. If you have the ability to acquire tools, and techniques and find, organise and more importantly use information effectively, you increase your ability to solve problems outside your current span of knowledge and capabilities.
Get Results: wisdom
If you are able to utilise other peoples’ resources, people like family, friends, colleagues, and/or associates, you increase your resourcefulness exponentially. It’s often the shortest and easiest path to getting a positive conclusion, but is a skill that needs to be developed and nurtured over time.
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To get better results, be more resourceful, by being determined to acquire the necessary resources to get the job done, no matter what, find a way. Find resources that will improve your KNOWLEDGE, MOTIVATION and PRODUCTIVITY. Where will you find these? Well check out our ULTIMATE RESOURCE GUIDES currently covering Weight loss, Business and Marketing, they’re a great place to begin.
Get Results: Ultimate Marketing GuideGet Results: Ultimate Weight Loss GuideGet Results: Ultimate Business Guide
The Goal setting strategy highlighted in this post is designed for businesses and individuals alike. Goal setting can be used for personal, business, health, and spiritual life, in fact whatever area of life you want to accomplish something.
Get Results: Goal setting Model
You can have as many goals as you like in as many areas of your life as you like as long as you don’t overload yourself with an unrealistic amount of goals that are so plentiful you can’t keep track of them all.They can be changed at any time, altered, and redirected as you desire, but having goals, sets you off in a specific direction rather than just floating aimlessly. I advocate using one big “End Goal” which sets your life to a purpose, with all other goals supporting this “End Goal”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jr2lu2YWJg
Focus on one BIG Goal
Aim towards one big “End Goal”. A Goal will add purpose to your life. Check yourself before embarking on your journey. Check that your “End Goal” will give you the lifestyle you crave. Will you be doing what you want to do? Will it fit in with your family life? Will it give you the feeling you want it to? Will it allow you the right work/life balance you crave? Think about this carefully from the start. Don’t waste your life pursuing a goal you don’t really want.
Summary
Aim for one big “End Goal”
Check your “End Goal” will give you the life you crave
Break down into smaller mini Goals
Each action should be aimed at the attainment of your “End Goal”. Start from your “End Goal” and work backwards. Break your “End Goal” down into smaller mini goals whose purpose is the ultimate attainment of your “End goal”. Line up your daily, weekly, monthly, yearly mini goals like domino’s so that each one that is pushed over helps in knocking down the next. This will add momentum and make the next mini goal easier. It’s goal setting in the present, we can only shape the future with our actions in the present. Tomorrow never comes. “Doing it tomorrow” is simply procrastination and fear of failure, rejections or disappointment.
Summary
Break “End Goal” into smaller sequential “mini goals” line up like domino’s so that each mini goal helps in the attainment of the next
Mini goals should be daily, weekly, monthly, yearly all leading to the “End Goal”.
What’s the one thing I can do now to help in the attainment of the “End Goal”.
Start today. The present moment is the only moment we live in. So shape tomorrow with the actions of today.
Take action
The most important part is to take action. A sure way of not fulfilling your goals is failing to take action. Work out a sound plan of action and go for it. Don’t fear failure, because it is part of the learning process. Failure will help you test the soundness of your plan and help in your search for a better plan and for the attainment of your “End Goal”. Look for the best systems, models, habits and relationships that others have used to get the same “End Goal”. Who has achieved what you want to achieve and how did they do it?
The fear of failure, fear rejection, and fear of disappointment, will conspire to work against you and deter you from reaching your goals, they manifest themselves in the form of procrastination, indecision, overwhelm, anxiety and keeping yourself busy doing unnecessary things so that you feel busy. To test whether you are suffering from any of these, ask yourself “What would I be doing now if I knew I could not fail for the next 24/48/72 hours?”
Measurable – Put a deadline on it. If you treat it like a project with a deadline and work backwards. setting your mini goals as you go it will help you “think it through”. Moving it away from being just a hopeful dream into a doable project. It will help you see what needs to be done this week, this month, this year, in the next 3 years etc. Check your actual progress against your planned schedule to see if you are still on schedule.
Summary
Taking action is key, without action you will never reach any goal
Set deadlines for your mini goals and the “End Goal”, and check progress against the plan.
Don’t give up
You can only fail if you give up. Life has a habit of testing us as we move through it and this seems particularly true just before we make a major goal breakthrough. It seems to be testing to see if we are worthy of it. Make sure you don’t give up at the first signs of failure overtaking you. Remember to look at the systems, models, habits and relationships of others who have succeeded in achieving the goal your are aiming for and see what you can learn from them in the pursuit of yours. Check out my problem solving post about overcoming obstacles.
Get Results: Goal setting componentsGet Results: Setting goalsGet Results: mistakes in setting goals
If you’re interested using the S.M.A.R.T. approach to goal setting it should be
Specific – Remember specific goals lead to specific actions
Measurable – If you can measure your goal you will know when you have achieved it. “If you can’t measure it you can’t control it” goes the management mantra
Attainable – don’t make goals easy to reach, In his book “The one thing”, Gary Keller advocates ignoring “doable” and “stretch” goals and going for “possible” goals, where you don’t currently have the skills to achieve it, this will allow you to grow into the goal in question.
Relative – Your goal should align with your morals and ethics and put you where you want to be in life. If it doesn’t align with your values and give you the life you want then it will not make you happy.
Timely – Set a timeline and aim for a deadline. Setting a deadline will help you focus on reaching your goal.
“Some men give up their designs when they have almost reached the goal; while others, on the contrary, obtain a victory by exerting, at the last moment, more vigorous efforts than before.” – Polybius
“Life can be pulled by goals just as surely as it can be pushed by drives.” – Viktor Frankl
“Don’t be pushed by your problems; be led by your dreams.”
“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you will land amongst the stars” – Les Brown
“Your goal should be just out of reach, but not out of sight.” – Denis Waitley and Remi Witt
“Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” – Robert Browning
“Purpose is what gives life a meaning.” – C. H. Parkhurst
“Every ceiling, when reached, becomes a floor, upon which one walks as a matter of course and prescriptive right.” – Aldous Huxley
“Aim at the sun, and you may not reach it; but your arrow will fly far higher than if aimed at an object on a level with yourself. ” -J. Howes
“Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind.” – Seneca
“Who aims at excellence will be above mediocrity; who aims at mediocrity will be far short of it.” – Burmese Saying
“Don’t bunt. Aim out of the ballpark.” – David Ogilvy
“The virtue lies in the struggle, not in the prize.” – Richard Monckton Milnes
“To reach a port, we must sail—Sail, not tie at anchor—Sail, not drift.” – Franklin Roosevelt
“He who would arrive at the appointed end must follow a single road and not wander through many ways. ” – Seneca
“It is not enough to take steps which may some day lead to a goal; each step must be itself a goal and a step likewise.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“In absence of clearly defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily acts of trivia.” – Author Unknown
“Most “impossible” goals can be met simply by breaking them down into bite size chunks, writing them down, believing them, and then going full speed ahead as if they were routine.” – Don Lancaster
“There are two things to aim at in life; first to get what you want, and after that to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind has achieved the second.” – Logan Pearsall Smith
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The most important part of any plan or goal is actually “taking action“. Without this crucial step nothing will come to fruition. A dream is but a dream unless you move to make it a reality. It’s not just about taking action, it’s taking action in the right way. Doing the important things that need to be done to carry out the plan and achieve your desired goal is what’s necessary. If you can act with purpose, make sure you are doing the important things in a productive manner you cannot fail to make progress. Throughout this post I am referring to “taking action” in a business sense, although many of the principles can be used for personal goals/plans with little adjustment.
Don’t let fear stop you
Sounds simple doesn’t it. Well it is as long as we don’t allow fear to overtake us and sabotage our actions. The fear of failing, the fear of rejection and the fear of disappointment are our enemies in such situations. They show themselves in the form of procrastination, indecision, overwhelm, insecurity and self doubt. To overcome these enemies we must re-frame them in our minds, believe we are good enough, not fear failure, but embrace it as a necessary component of making progress. If you have never failed at anything, you have never pushed yourself to your boundaries of your capability. Imagine your life inside a bubble: only by pushing past the boundary of that bubble can you make it bigger. A bigger bubble equals a bigger life. Quite often the fear of something is far worse than the actual experience of it, so get out of your head and get on with taking action.
Overcoming obstacles
We are sure to come across obstacles along the journey. Obstacles are part of the learning process, they test us and our plans. We should be refining and improving our plans as we move along our journey. If it were easy, everyone would be doing it, so difficulty is a barrier to entry for our competition also, and means that the weaker ones are weeded out along the way. You’re ahead of 90% of the population by even making a start, so take strength from that fact and push on. Use problem solving techniques to overcome difficult-to-solve obstacles, and look for “role models” to find better ways of doing things and overcome things that get in your way. Look at the systems, models, habits and relationships that successful people employ(ed) on their path to success. Research these and test them for yourself. Use the acronym M.A.R.S.H to remember these important areas of study.
Models
And
Relationships
Systems
Habits
Models – Business models are an area of study in themselves. It’s important to understand how businesses do what they do, the nine building blocks of business models include:
Core capabilities: The capabilities and competencies necessary to execute a company’s business model.
Partner network: The business alliances which complement other aspects of the business model.
Value configuration: The Value Configuration describes the arrangement of activities and resources that are necessary to create value for the customer.
Value proposition: The products and services a business offers. Quoting Osterwalder (2004), a value proposition “is an overall view of .. products and services that together represent value for a specific customer segment. It describes the way a firm differentiates itself from its competitors and is the reason why customers buy from a certain firm and not from another.”
Target customer: The target audience for a business’ products and services.
Distribution channel: The means by which a company delivers products and services to customers. This includes the company’s marketing and distribution strategy.
Customer relationship: The links a company establishes between itself and its different customer segments. The process of managing customer relationships is referred to as customer relationship management.
Cost structure: The monetary consequences of the means employed in the business model. A company’s DOC.
Revenue: The way a company makes money through a variety of revenue flows. A company’s income.
There are so many examples of business models
Auction business model
Bricks and clicks business model
Collective business models
Cutting out the middleman model
Direct sales model
Distribution business models, various
Franchise
Freemium business model
Industrialization of services business model
Low-cost carrier business model
Loyalty business models
Monopolistic business model
Multi-level marketing business model
Network effects business model
Online auction business model
Online content business model
Premium business model
Professional open-source model
Pyramid scheme business model
Razor and blades business model (bait and hook)
Servitization of products business model
Subscription business model
Value Added Reseller model
Unbundling business model
The long tail business model
Multi sided platform model
Free as a business model
Open business model
Look for alternative ways of doing things and thinking “outside the box”. Look at other industries and see if it can be ripped and piveted for your purposes.
Relationships – Probably one of the best ways of getting what you want is by forming relationships with others. None of us are an island and we all need to develop good personal and working relationships. Form relationships with like minded people that can help you and you can help in return. There has to be some form of mutual exchange for any relationship to flourish. So don’t fall into the trap of forming relationships for pure selfish gain. Form them to improve the lives of all involved and nurture them with genuine concern and caring. Win win situations are the only sustainable option we have, otherwise eventually the one getting the raw end of the deal is going to feel used and unappreciated and move on, it’s just a matter of time. Think about how you can add value to other people’s lives in every aspect of yours. We all admire people that put others first. For example, I once had a guy, who I had never met, design me a website because he just “wanted to help me out”, he is now a good friend of mine and I still haven’t forgot that gesture. I have done similar myself since, and it feels great to do something special for another human being out of the blue.
Systems – Famous systems include franchises such as McDonald’s, where they can afford to employ lots of young adults with little or no work or life experience to work in a multi million pound fast food business and produce consistent food products time and time again. How do they do this? Well they have very efficient systems of food processing and product delivery that give consistent results. Systems include procedures, processes, courses of action or methods that achieve a specific result, consistently.
Habits – Habits are actions we do automatically, without thinking about them. We can form good or bad habits. Habits are formed with practice and doing and thinking things in a certain way over and over again.
Use goal setting to control the direction of actions. Taking action without goal setting is like driving around a town without having somewhere to go. So use goal setting to focus your actions like a compass, and move you in a direction that will lead to a better life.
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Hazel and I recently went for a lovely walk around Entwistle and Wayoh reservoirs which took us approx 100 mins to walk the 9 km distance, and I thought of how that walk was almost a metaphor for the road to business success.
When we first started it look such a long way, Hazel asked “Are we going to walk all the way around it?” but as I’m trying to lose weight at the moment, I thought it would do me good to do it. It reminded me of setting off with a business goal in mind that may cause us to question ourselves “Is this goal too big for me?” or “Can I do this?” Just making a start is half of the battle in these circumstances, make a start and see what happens.
Get Results: Walking towards your goal
As we walked around the reservoir we just took it one step at a time, not big steps but definite ones, one after the other. We were admiring the scenery as we went, it was such a lovely day. Before we knew it we had travel approx 4000 steps (according to our mobile phone app) when we turned back to see the distance we’d travelled we were surprised at our progress. It hardly seemed any time at all, yet those small steps had added up, partly because of our consistency of walking and partly because we were enjoying the walk so much. As in business if you take the important steps towards your goal, and try to get some enjoyment from the journey, you will be surprised how quickly you can make progress.
As we progressed along the pathway we found lots of alternative routes that went off into the surrounding woods, some of which looked rather interesting, but we stuck to our aim of going around the water’s edge. In business we face lots of distractions, that try to lure us from our main path. Beware of these time wasters. Stick to the quickest route to your destination otherwise you might find yourself lost and wasting time and effort, leaving you without the energy to get to your goal
Sometimes our path may be blocked and we are forced temporarily off route, and this is ok, we just have to take a diversion and get back on course as soon as we can.
As we passed the halfway stage of our walk we got a second wind of energy which seemed to add a spring into our step. There seemed to be a building momentum pushing us towards our destination. In business you find that the same thing seems to come to your aid after you’ve gone so far, pushing you forwards, or is it your goal pulling you to it?
When we finished after an hour and half or so, we had walked close to 9 km, not that far you may say, but for me, who has back trouble when walking, I thought it was a great achievement. I felt pleased that we had done it but was surprised how quickly we had done it and how easy it had seemed after all. Again in business you will find that sometimes goals, which seemed such long shots when you started out are indeed much easier to achieve that you worried they would be. But you’ll never know until you actually give it a go.
Summary
Set yourself a big goal
Formulate a plan of action – the best way to achieve your goal
Make a start towards your goal – just do it
Avoid distractions
If you hit any road blocks take enough of a diversion to get past it and carry on
Let momentum push you goal-wards. Successive wins (steps) build and form new habits which will make the journey easier as you go
Achieve your goal, enjoy your sense of achievement and use this to set new bigger goals and repeat the cycle
Check out our “Ultimate Guides” links in the sidebar/navigation, well worth a look.
Whether you’re trying to lose weight or get fit, or become a success in business, whatever you want, there must be a way you can get the results you crave. But let’s first go back to basics.
There are only 5 basic reasons you’re not getting those elusive results…
• You don’t know what is wanted – a lack of a defined goal
• You’re knowingly not doing something that needs to be done
• You don’t know something that needs to be done
• You’re doing something wrong – you don’t necessarily know it’s wrong
• You’re trying to do something that is impossible to achieve
At a very basic level, there are just 2 things you need to do to get the results you so desperately want…
Know what to do
and
Do what needs to be done
It’s important that we start from this basic understanding, so that you don’t miss any of the important possible variables that could be preventing you from getting results, although these appear simple to overcome the devil is in the detail, and this detail is specific to you and your situation.
Let’s have a look at each of the reasons why you might not be getting the results you want. Although these are a great starting point, remember that we are highlighting a framework here, to start your journey of discovery from. You will require further insight to make this framework more relevant to your particular situation. However this framework applies to such diverse goals as weight loss, improving fitness, wealth building, success in business, relationships and much more.
#1 – You don’t know what is wanted, you lack a defined goal.
Make your goals specific and measurable. Focus on outcomes and results rather than activities. It’s really not about working on the pursuit of your goal for 16 hours a day and seeing yourself as an hard working go-getter. A few hours are fine, if that’s sufficient time to do what needs to be done. As long as you’re laser focusing on achieving results, rather than clocking up your working time, it’s about working smarter rather than harder, being effective rather than efficient.
Clearly visualise the outcome, what does it feel like, look like, taste like when you reach your goal? Align your goal with your purpose (be true to yourself). Make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons, doing it for you, not others You don’t want to spend time striving to achieve a goal that once achieved makes you feel empty and dissatisfied because it wasn’t in keeping with “who you are”.
#2- Doing something wrong – you don’t know it’s wrong and don’t know something that needs to be done.
Both these points concern undertaking research and gathering accurate information that will allow you to achieve your goal. Without accurate knowledge, about how to do what needs doing, the results you crave are going to be hard to come by.
Layout the assumed essential elements of the process required to achieve your intended goal. Research each of the steps in the process using role models and study the models, systems, habits and relationships that they have adopted to achieve what you’re aiming to achieve (more about this here). This should be your starting point only and you should aim to work from this point, testing possible variations to see what works specifically for you. It’s a trial and error approach that often leads to the best results for many goals.
#3- Knowingly not doing something that needs to be done.
This is about failing to take appropriate action and involves both motivation and productivity components.
Motivation
It’s important to stay motivated, you’ve got to want to change and be inspired to take action. There are a number of motivation hacks to help in this process such as doing the hard things early in the day when your will-power is fully charged.
Being persistent and not allowing failure to diminish your drive is also important when you hit hurdles during your journey.
Productivity
Work with priority and focus, be effective not efficient, work smart not hard. Productivity is a whole book in itself, we have lots of productivity help for you if you decide to sign up with us.
#4- Trying to do something that is impossible.
It’s important not to put artificial limitations on yourself. You might not strictly be able to run a 100 miles per hour, but you can find ways to travel at that speed aided. It’s about looking for alternative ways of getting the job done, but also understand that there are some things that are currently impossible to achieve. However if someone else has already done what you’re aiming to do, then it can be done again for sure.
Challenges
Underestimating Goals
Sometimes pursuing your goal is not as easy as going from A to B to C. Be prepared to be flexible in your approach. Lookout for feedback and review progress as you go. Think outside the box if you need to and approach situations from a different angle. Look to how role models have succeeded in achieving what you’re aiming to do.
Look at trends to see where things are headed in the future. You need to be effective by doing the right thing. Don’t allow difficulties to diminish your motivation. Build on each successful day.
Test and practice, measure and monitor results. Tweak and begin the process again until you achieve your goal. Be adaptable, be prepared to be flexible in your approach. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of madness.
Avoid Fear
The fear of failure, rejection, change, embarrassment, being vulnerable are often manifested through things like procrastination, defending your position, staying within your comfort zone and remaining stuck in your ways, avoidance, over complicating situations, insisting on perfection and giving up too early.
These are all signs of underlying fear and this is holding you back from doing what’s necessary to push past this and do what’s required. Be prepared to take calculated risks, waiting for the perfect time to reveal itself is foolish, because it simply will never be the perfect time. Take action sooner rather than later. Get in the game! You’ve got to be in it to win it.
Create opportunities, “do”, focus, face challenges head on, learn from your failings, and be committed to your cause.
Acquire practiced expertise
There is no substitute for practice in developing certain skills. There is no short cut when developing a skill that can’t be taught or learned quickly. Some skills are only attained through deliberate practice and doing repetitively over a prolonged period of time. Things like motor skills, intuition, co ordination, muscle memory, seeing variables that less experienced people just can’t see, are improved and strengthened over time.
In many instances, if you haven’t got the time to invest in developing such skills you can allows look to hire people who already possess these skills to do it for you, if you have the necessary financial resources.
Conclusion
Stripping it back to basics helps clarify the underlying requirements for you to achieve your goal. The sheer number and variety of human goals requires a unique set of approaches for each goal you may have, but using each of the points highlighted above will provide a framework to start from.
Some health based goals may require more of a motivational focused approach than say, wealth accumulation goals, where knowledge or productivity may be the main focus. Most goals will require differing amounts of knowledge, motivation and productivity based skills developing as you progress towards the successful completion of those goals. Life is as much about the journey as the destination, so make that journey as enjoyable an experience as possible as you make progress towards goal achievement.
