TA DA! Yes I can get things done when I want to!! So in the spirit of following my own coaching, here is part 2 of the series on procrastination.
I know you are all dying to know what the QUICK FIX is. Sorry, no can do! Look elsewhere for that answer!
If you have read my blogs, you’ll guess that I’m the kind of coach that deals in reality. I help people become successful, achieve their dreams and create the life they desire, by dealing with their limiting and unhelpful beliefs, perceptions and thinking systems.
I get results for people, because I use what works! I know what drives performance and outcomes and I help others get it. And how you get it, is through putting in time, energy, effort and focus on yourself and what you want. You have to be ready and prepared to work on yourself and take 100% responsibility for your outcomes.
Does that sound harsh or unfair to you? If so, you are likely to be in the 90% of the herd looking to blame others or events and seek your quick fix pill. I know you don’t want hear this, but there is NO quick fix (not for anything) and YOU are 100% responsible for what shows up in your reality. This is often a hard concept to accept, but it doesn’t make it false! People who tell you otherwise, are just praying on your gullibility and your desire to have the wish fairy wave her wand over your head and fix your problems for you. Yes that does sound wonderful I know! We can all dream, but reality, is reality.
Success, Achievement and therefore coaching is about facing reality and dealing with it. THAT is how you get phenomenal success. There is a formula that all successful people know and understand and all I can tell you is it is not about quick fixes.
So in that vein, here’s the first step to put your focus, time, energy and effort into.
Step 1: First thing is to recognise that you are actually procrastinating :)
It is important to be self aware! I think it’s Dr Phi who says “YOU CANNOT CHANGE WHAT YOU DON’T ACKNOWLEDGE”! As a coach, I know this to be 100% true. I cannot assist any client who refuses to acknowledge their own thinking and behaviours and the impact of those on their lives!
And our whole psyche is designed to filter out stuff that we choose to pretend doesn’t exist. Yes I said pretend! We all pretend stuff is not happening! The majority of the planet are walking around in denial a great deal of the time (way more than you or I could anticipate). This I also know to be true. I know it because of the science but also more powerfully, my own person experience. I have delved deeply within myself for 25 years and I see it in everyone I know and coach (and I know a lot of people)!!!!
So we all have our areas of denial. It’s now time to put a shining light on the things you are pretending NOT to notice! Therefore one of the main keys to success is to get SELF AWARE enough to know when you are doing it! Easier said than done - absolutely!!
Here are some questions to help you identify if you are procrastinating: -
• Is your day filled with unimportant or low priority tasks (think inside and outside of work)?
• Do you leave items/tasks on your To Do list for longer than 2 days?
• Do you have loads of To Do’s (written or in your head)?
• How much of your day is spent reviewing non-priority emails, watching TV, playing games, reading, on facebook (or other social media sites) or other non-productive, but pleasurable activities?
• Do you review emails/reports/voicemails and not doing anything with them straight away?
• Do you read the same thing more than once?
• Do you sit down to start a high-priority task, and almost immediately going off to do something else?
• Do you consider doing a task more than once, but still take no action to start it?
• Do you regularly agree to do unimportant tasks that others ask of you?
• Do you regularly agree to do things that you don’t want to do or don’t need to do?
• Do you find yourself waiting for the “right mood/inspiration/time” to tackle the important task at hand?
• Do you make up excuses and stories to yourself and others about why you haven’t done something or achieved something?
• Do you tell yourself that you perform better under pressure and tight deadlines?
If you have answered YES to any of the above, guess what? Yes, you my friend have been procrastinating. I know it, and more importantly YOU now know it ;)
Now for those people who answered yes to the last one, and are now telling the computer and themselves that that has absolutely nothing to do with procrastination, well think again! Yes it does. And I’m not going to tell you why for a couple of blogs yet! So now you have to keep reading. Oh LOL!
OK, so what I hear you say? So I procrastinate. No biggie! No it’s not, if you have every intention of leading a small, mediocre life! As highlighted in the last blog, procrastinating is our key self defeating behaviour. If you think you only do it occasionally and it has no impact on your life, then I ask you to consider the following questions honestly:
• Have I have achieved absolutely everything that I dreamed of for my life up until now?
• Am I in the top 10% of highly successful, top achievers in my area of expertise?
• Am I constantly achieving stretch goals and moving forward rapidly to greater success?
• Am I achieving what I want in ALL areas of my life?
If you can answer yes to all the above, then well done you! I congratulate you. You are one of few people who have overcome all their fears and have managed to find a truly balanced life!
However, most people cannot say that. Why? I know you have your reasons and excuses. But if you cannot accept that procrastinating is holding you back, then you will be unlikely to achieve the things you want in life (it will remain just dreams).
Just to be ultra clear - If you have consciously de-prioiritised a task for another high priority task and you complete both tasks, that is not procrastination but good time management. But make sure that this is true and genuine! At the end of the day, the only person you fool by not being truthful with yourself, IS yourself.
If you are serious about nailing procrastination, then I have some generic self help to assist you. Here is the first Overcoming Procrastination – template 1.
To give you a deadline (and me) this needs to be completed by 8 August. I am on holiday next week, but I will ensure I meet this commitment for you!
You need to do this exercise with focus and energy. It is often useful to buy a special note book to make your notes in. So take the time out of your day. Sit somewhere inspiring. Get in touch with yourself and ask yourself the questions on the template. Notice what the little voice says. Be honest with yourself. Notice both your logical reaction and the subconscious messages coming through. Read the question and pause. Let things come to you. Pay close attention to the thoughts at the back of your mind! Then read it again and pause. Do it until you could look me in the eye and say I answered this with 100% honesty and conviction. Because if you don’t you are just playing and now you’re using me to help you procrastinate. NOT HAPPY JAN!
But seriously, if procrastination is a strong pattern in your life, coaching is a highly effective method to enable you to move forward. It is my experience, that self help is only of limited value as our psyche’s are clever enough to make us think we are helping ourselves when in fact we are cementing the very thinking, beliefs and behaviours we are trying to overcome! I had this experience many times, and the AHA for me catapulted me into coaching and training. A skilled and experience coach can help you overcome procrastination faster and more effectively than you will ever do it yourself. Why? Because a skilled coach can hear and see what you are pretending not to notice and acts as a sounding board to help you see what is happening in your life.
I’m off to the fabulous Northern Territory for a Thelma & Louise style trip (for those of you old enough to remember the movie) and some inner reflection on the way!
So enjoy spending time with yourself and until next time.....
If you feel you want to accelarate getting this issue sorted out, coaching is the best way to achieve results by addressing your personal issues. Contact us today.
Showing posts with label achievement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label achievement. Show all posts
Monday, July 26, 2010
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
CREATING POWERFUL GOALS
“A goal properly set is halfway reached”- Abraham Lincoln
“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream” - CS Lewis
“If you don't know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else” - Lawrence J. Peter
Hello all,
Recently I was leading a mentoring program for Females in IT&T (www.fitt.org.au) and some of the conversation came to setting goals.
As a coach with My Performance Coach, I often find that people are reluctant to set Powerful, Inspiring Goals prior to coming to coaching. Sometimes they have set goals and have had mixed success. Some people don’t even think they are unnecessary!
Do you seem to have an ongoing list of goals that you achieve some of and not others?
Think about all those well intentioned new year resolution you’ve set. How often did you go hard and achieve them? The odd one or two? Well you are not alone! Research shows about 20% of new year resolutions get achieved!
Goals are about taking RESPONSIBILITY for your life and your outcomes! Goals give you a sense of purpose, a direction and should be your inspiration. Goals help you establish what you will do, be and have in this world!! Without goals you are just aimlessly walking through life (like you are sleepwalking), hoping, that somehow, someway, you’ll get something that you want and if you don’t, well at least you can blame (them) out there somewhere!
Even though evidence suggests that Goal Setting is a significant part of achieving great success, most people really are not clear on how to effectively set goals to bring their ultimate future into reality.
Goals need to be realistic yet inspiring. They need to be powerfully motivating and come from a place of true toward motivation! Setting goals ensures you know exactly what you want to achieve! This creates the destination.
If you think of a goal as a destination on a map and if we assume you know exactly where you are today, then the route will become clear. The map also helps us see the different routes and if we get diverted or come across unanticipated obstacles we can see how to get back on track to get to our destination. We are also able to effectively measure our success towards our destination and continually motivate ourselves forward.
Setting inspiring goals from a place of strong motivation, enables you to get into the powerful habit of setting and achieving goals. When you start to achieve goals regularly your self-confidence soars!
There are a number of goal setting techniques which I will outline below.
However, any skill or techniques are only useful insofar as you have your head absolutely in the game.
I am often amazed at how many people (including myself on the odd occasion :) delude ourselves into believing we are good to go and just go blindly forward – sleepwalking! When it comes to inspirational, life changing or world changing goals, you need a whole other level of mindset!
Mandella didn’t become President of South Africa by having small uninspiring goals!
Phelps didn’t become an Olympic legend, with a goal of just 10 laps this morning!
Nothing can stop the with the right mental attitude from achieving goal; nothing on earth can help with the wrong mental attitude -Thomas Jefferson
As a coach and NLP practitioner, I spend a lot of my time studying success. I do so to assist myself and my clients emulate the best mindsets, skills and behaviours to achieve great success. So far, I haven’t come across anyone who has achieved phenomenal success, that didn’t have big inspirational goals. Some may say they didn’t articulate them, but they definitely were absolutely crystal clear on their goals in their mind and actions. You CANNOT achieve great success on luck alone!
Creating Powerful and Inspiring Goals
The first thing you need to know is what inspires you and what are you passionate about?
I find many people who come to coaching, have no idea to begin with. Many people don’t understand their value systems and are not feeling particularly inspired in life. Hint, if you have lots of “woulda, shoulda, coulda’s’ in your thinking, then that’s not it!!! Some people feel as though nothing in particular is inspirational. If you fall into this category I strongly recommend you consider a coach to assist you to move forward as this thinking is a strong resistance strategy to moving forward. I have watched people in this space time and time again, get disheartened, depressed or plain give up on things and just exist through life!
NO matter how much you think you want to achieve your goals your mindset will sabotage you if your motivation is not fully aligned with your vision!
STEP 1: Create a Long Term Vision. Think of a specific date 5 -30 years from now. What is it that you want to achieve? What will you be doing? Who will you be doing it with? How will you be doing it? Create a big picture vision in your head. It is often useful for whole of brain acceptance and thinking to create a vision and story board. This enables immediate recognition of your vision.
STEP 2: Create specific Goals. Now create goals that will help you achieve this vision. It is often more useful to start with the big hairy audacious goals (BHAGs) and work backwards! If you have done this well, you should have goals from now til your vision. Sometimes the medium goals are not clear to start off with. DON’T WORRY about that!! All will become clear. Just get clear on the big end goals and exactly how you are going to make a start!
STEP 3: Regular Review and Assessment. Being crystal clear in your focus is about 90% of the achievement of the goal. Take your eye off the ball and loads of nasty things can get in your way. Just ask Donald Trump! The key to achieving ALL goals is the regularly review where you are at!
And I don’t mean a quick checklist in your head. I mean a full and thorough analysis of your successes, how you got them, when you got them, what helped you. And thoroughly analysing your failures (which is only learning forward if used correctly) – what did you do, how did it go wrong (cause-effect), what caused it to go wrong, what significantly can you learn and apply.
Review your strategy and goals regularly, taking in your learning forward failures and see how quickly you start to tick off those goals!
Goal Setting Tips
• Ensure each goal is stated in the positive: Express your goals positively – To become a well known and admired successful business owner by 2018.
• Think BE, DO, HAVE: When thinking of goals think about what do you want to be (position, state of mind etc), Do (actions and behaviours) and HAVE (stuff you want)
• Only set goals that you have 100% power over: (see previous blog) I.e. how what you do (mindset, actions, behaviours) will get you what you want. Setting goals where you have to rely on others or random events to occur is not helpful to you and enables you to easily blame external factors for lack of achievement!
• Be Specific: Set a specific goal, with specific time frames. This is not as easy as it sounds. It needs to be rich in detail leaving you in no doubt about exactly what it is you are trying to achieve. Time fames can be amended later if necessary. I can’t tell you the number of times people write non-specific goals but convince themselves otherwise.
DO NOT fall into the too hard trap, so I will just make it fuzzy. If you set fuzzy goals, you will get fuzzy outcomes – end of story!! If you have a very specific goal, you will know exactly how, when, where and what you are going to be doing to achieve it. Remember, Olympians don’t have fuzzy goals like “come in first place! Or win GOLD” - They set very, very specific outcomes and know exactly what performance requirements will enable them to achieve their BHAG’s!
• Chunk it down: Make sure you chunk down your goals to bite size pieces. Create lots of milestones to celebrate on your way to fabulous success!
• Prioritise: Do have several goals with the same time frames and priorities. This will just get you into procrastination mode and you may feel overwhelmed!
• Write your goals down: If your goals ain’t written, they ain’t likely to get achieved (or the big ones in any event). People have reluctance to write them down and display them proudly because they already DO NOT believe it is possible!! If that’s the case, forget all I have said and go back to bed!
• Be realistic, but INSPIRATIONAL: It is vitally important to set goals that you THINK you can achieve. Note my language. What you think you can achieve! If you think you can’t achieve, I will lay money on the bet that you WON’T achieve it. Seen it all toooooo many times! So set inspirational, yet realistic goals to you. They should not be easily attainable, and you should have to put in a good level of effort and change to achieve the goals (otherwise they aren’t going to motivate you properly). Too hard and you’ll give up at the first couple of hurdles, too easy and you just achieve mundane little tasks! Remember great things don’t happen with minimal effort!
• Identify your BARRIERS now: Figure out what is going to stand in your way of achievement. BIG CLUE – Your thinking and behaviour will account for 95% of the barriers – fear, procrastination, etc. Also identify external barriers. KNOW how you will overcome them, otherwise, they will be effective in keeping you from your dreams! If you are not willing to overcome obstacles and barriers through hard work & persistence, again, I suggest you stay in bed and forget your goals!
Until next time, Remember - Life is not about finding yourself...Life is about creating yourself!
“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream” - CS Lewis
“If you don't know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else” - Lawrence J. Peter
Hello all,
Recently I was leading a mentoring program for Females in IT&T (www.fitt.org.au) and some of the conversation came to setting goals.
As a coach with My Performance Coach, I often find that people are reluctant to set Powerful, Inspiring Goals prior to coming to coaching. Sometimes they have set goals and have had mixed success. Some people don’t even think they are unnecessary!
Do you seem to have an ongoing list of goals that you achieve some of and not others?
Think about all those well intentioned new year resolution you’ve set. How often did you go hard and achieve them? The odd one or two? Well you are not alone! Research shows about 20% of new year resolutions get achieved!
Goals are about taking RESPONSIBILITY for your life and your outcomes! Goals give you a sense of purpose, a direction and should be your inspiration. Goals help you establish what you will do, be and have in this world!! Without goals you are just aimlessly walking through life (like you are sleepwalking), hoping, that somehow, someway, you’ll get something that you want and if you don’t, well at least you can blame (them) out there somewhere!
Even though evidence suggests that Goal Setting is a significant part of achieving great success, most people really are not clear on how to effectively set goals to bring their ultimate future into reality.
Goals need to be realistic yet inspiring. They need to be powerfully motivating and come from a place of true toward motivation! Setting goals ensures you know exactly what you want to achieve! This creates the destination.
If you think of a goal as a destination on a map and if we assume you know exactly where you are today, then the route will become clear. The map also helps us see the different routes and if we get diverted or come across unanticipated obstacles we can see how to get back on track to get to our destination. We are also able to effectively measure our success towards our destination and continually motivate ourselves forward.
Setting inspiring goals from a place of strong motivation, enables you to get into the powerful habit of setting and achieving goals. When you start to achieve goals regularly your self-confidence soars!
There are a number of goal setting techniques which I will outline below.
However, any skill or techniques are only useful insofar as you have your head absolutely in the game.
I am often amazed at how many people (including myself on the odd occasion :) delude ourselves into believing we are good to go and just go blindly forward – sleepwalking! When it comes to inspirational, life changing or world changing goals, you need a whole other level of mindset!
Mandella didn’t become President of South Africa by having small uninspiring goals!
Phelps didn’t become an Olympic legend, with a goal of just 10 laps this morning!
Nothing can stop the
As a coach and NLP practitioner, I spend a lot of my time studying success. I do so to assist myself and my clients emulate the best mindsets, skills and behaviours to achieve great success. So far, I haven’t come across anyone who has achieved phenomenal success, that didn’t have big inspirational goals. Some may say they didn’t articulate them, but they definitely were absolutely crystal clear on their goals in their mind and actions. You CANNOT achieve great success on luck alone!
Creating Powerful and Inspiring Goals
The first thing you need to know is what inspires you and what are you passionate about?
I find many people who come to coaching, have no idea to begin with. Many people don’t understand their value systems and are not feeling particularly inspired in life. Hint, if you have lots of “woulda, shoulda, coulda’s’ in your thinking, then that’s not it!!! Some people feel as though nothing in particular is inspirational. If you fall into this category I strongly recommend you consider a coach to assist you to move forward as this thinking is a strong resistance strategy to moving forward. I have watched people in this space time and time again, get disheartened, depressed or plain give up on things and just exist through life!
NO matter how much you think you want to achieve your goals your mindset will sabotage you if your motivation is not fully aligned with your vision!
STEP 1: Create a Long Term Vision. Think of a specific date 5 -30 years from now. What is it that you want to achieve? What will you be doing? Who will you be doing it with? How will you be doing it? Create a big picture vision in your head. It is often useful for whole of brain acceptance and thinking to create a vision and story board. This enables immediate recognition of your vision.
STEP 2: Create specific Goals. Now create goals that will help you achieve this vision. It is often more useful to start with the big hairy audacious goals (BHAGs) and work backwards! If you have done this well, you should have goals from now til your vision. Sometimes the medium goals are not clear to start off with. DON’T WORRY about that!! All will become clear. Just get clear on the big end goals and exactly how you are going to make a start!
STEP 3: Regular Review and Assessment. Being crystal clear in your focus is about 90% of the achievement of the goal. Take your eye off the ball and loads of nasty things can get in your way. Just ask Donald Trump! The key to achieving ALL goals is the regularly review where you are at!
And I don’t mean a quick checklist in your head. I mean a full and thorough analysis of your successes, how you got them, when you got them, what helped you. And thoroughly analysing your failures (which is only learning forward if used correctly) – what did you do, how did it go wrong (cause-effect), what caused it to go wrong, what significantly can you learn and apply.
Review your strategy and goals regularly, taking in your learning forward failures and see how quickly you start to tick off those goals!
Goal Setting Tips
• Ensure each goal is stated in the positive: Express your goals positively – To become a well known and admired successful business owner by 2018.
• Think BE, DO, HAVE: When thinking of goals think about what do you want to be (position, state of mind etc), Do (actions and behaviours) and HAVE (stuff you want)
• Only set goals that you have 100% power over: (see previous blog) I.e. how what you do (mindset, actions, behaviours) will get you what you want. Setting goals where you have to rely on others or random events to occur is not helpful to you and enables you to easily blame external factors for lack of achievement!
• Be Specific: Set a specific goal, with specific time frames. This is not as easy as it sounds. It needs to be rich in detail leaving you in no doubt about exactly what it is you are trying to achieve. Time fames can be amended later if necessary. I can’t tell you the number of times people write non-specific goals but convince themselves otherwise.
DO NOT fall into the too hard trap, so I will just make it fuzzy. If you set fuzzy goals, you will get fuzzy outcomes – end of story!! If you have a very specific goal, you will know exactly how, when, where and what you are going to be doing to achieve it. Remember, Olympians don’t have fuzzy goals like “come in first place! Or win GOLD” - They set very, very specific outcomes and know exactly what performance requirements will enable them to achieve their BHAG’s!
• Chunk it down: Make sure you chunk down your goals to bite size pieces. Create lots of milestones to celebrate on your way to fabulous success!
• Prioritise: Do have several goals with the same time frames and priorities. This will just get you into procrastination mode and you may feel overwhelmed!
• Write your goals down: If your goals ain’t written, they ain’t likely to get achieved (or the big ones in any event). People have reluctance to write them down and display them proudly because they already DO NOT believe it is possible!! If that’s the case, forget all I have said and go back to bed!
• Be realistic, but INSPIRATIONAL: It is vitally important to set goals that you THINK you can achieve. Note my language. What you think you can achieve! If you think you can’t achieve, I will lay money on the bet that you WON’T achieve it. Seen it all toooooo many times! So set inspirational, yet realistic goals to you. They should not be easily attainable, and you should have to put in a good level of effort and change to achieve the goals (otherwise they aren’t going to motivate you properly). Too hard and you’ll give up at the first couple of hurdles, too easy and you just achieve mundane little tasks! Remember great things don’t happen with minimal effort!
• Identify your BARRIERS now: Figure out what is going to stand in your way of achievement. BIG CLUE – Your thinking and behaviour will account for 95% of the barriers – fear, procrastination, etc. Also identify external barriers. KNOW how you will overcome them, otherwise, they will be effective in keeping you from your dreams! If you are not willing to overcome obstacles and barriers through hard work & persistence, again, I suggest you stay in bed and forget your goals!
Until next time, Remember - Life is not about finding yourself...Life is about creating yourself!
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