Tips & Insights for Top Performance

“I have goals, but don’t seem to reach them? Why?” Lack of a plan. In the book “Goals” by Brian Tracy, he tells the story about two desserts and how people died crossing to get from one town to another because they lost perspective in the middle of the dessert since they could not see the beginning or the end and died. To resolve the problem the town put mile markers between the cities to give travelers smaller milestones to focus on. Goals are also like this. If you do not break your big goals into smaller milestones, it can be overwhelming to figure out how to accomplish them.  The project is always too big to undertake and it simply never gets done. Set your focus goal, measurable goals and milestones to allow a clear plan for goal success. I recommend that you take an annual focus goal and have monthly milestones. Read the goal and the milestones for the month daily. (i.e. if you want to increase your income, add 2 new clients this month and have a plan for attracting them.)

“I have a focus goal, but I am just too busy to do anything about it. How do I get more time?” The power of passion. WHY did you set that goal? Was it a “should”? Often we set goals, like lose 25 lbs, eat better, make more money because we need to or know we SHOULD do this, but are not really motivated to make it happen. What we are passionate about will get our time and attention. Get connected to the WHY of your goal. Ask yourself “WHY does it matter?” ten times to get to the heart of it.

“I have a goal, but it is not happening yet. What needs to happen?”Post it in three spots. Read it daily. Think about the Laws of Attraction (www.thesecret.tv). Write what you have to do each week to make that goal more of a reality. Do not cancel yourself out with negative or self-defeating self talk. Be positive. Look for opportunities. Assess and make sure it is measurable and know what baby steps you can be taking to move closer to it. An elephant is not meant to be eaten in one bite!

In summary:

1. Have a clear direction and set your goal.
2. Make sure your goal is specific, inclusive of your life and motivational.
3. Set milestones to stay on track and have mini successes.
4. Stay connected to the Big WHY of your goal.
5. Be positive and whatever you do, DO SOMETHING!

I often hear problems from clients about setting and achieving their goals.  In this article I will address a few of them.

“I don’t want to set goals, but I like results. What should I do?” Often this is from a fear. Reality is that in order to set a goal; you must decide what you want. Many people prefer to leave all the options open, picking nothing, and defaulting to “life” to pick their destiny for them. Whether you resist goal setting because of a fear of failure, success, pressure, or whatever the reason, the fact remains; you cannot arrive where you have not set out to go. People who set goals have something to attain; and often do. You cannot attain what you have not set. Do yourself a favor, evaluate where you want to end up, determine a viable course to get there, pick a focus and work toward it. You can always adjust or change if after several months doors are closing, but at least then you can disregard this option!

“I have lots of ideas and goals, but I am overwhelmed where to start?” Often, goal setters can set too many goals. Three SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timed) goals are about the max a human brain can really focus on. I prefer to have ONE focus statement that combines several goals.

For example, if your goals are:

1. Earn 5K a month by being disciplined and focused on money making activities.
2. Refine skills (education) and processes to hold my clients more accountable to exceed goals.
3. Grow personally, more study time, expand family, eat better/work out, have an organized home.

Then you focus statement could be:
I am energized to be a focused and disciplined IBO, earning 5K/mo. coaching and training ‘Movers and Shakers’ to exceed their goals, while living in integrity nurturing and advancing my faith, family, health and home.

In the book, The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz, a new paradigm for time management is presented. The premise focuses on encouraging people to leverage their energy rather than time. We have all known for years, you cannot get more time, no matter what you do you only get 24 hours a day. Loehr says, “The ultimate measure of our lives is not how much time we spend on the planet, but rather how much energy we invest in the time we have.” Focusing on the concept of harnessing your energy to be in FULL ENGAGEMENT will help you to empty your plate and get done what you need to accomplish.

A few tips the book emphasizes are:

• Manage your energy, not your time
• Downtime is key for your success
• Rituals help to maintain focus
• Purpose fuels performance
• Work in sprints (small bursts of focused energy)

When things get hectic from trips, being sick, missed work days, special projects that take excessive work time; one of the first things to go is our routines, habits and the organization of our space and mind. Quickly we become overwhelmed or stuck as we try to make headway, feeling like we cannot move fast enough. At this point it is easy to get into the urgent and reactionary mode. Operating in urgent is usually the less effective way to manage our time and get things done as you are working hard all day, but just seem to answer phone calls, plow through e-mail and respond to things, but the to-do list stays the same or gets longer!

Here are 5 strategies to EMPOWER your productivity through Organization. This is organization of the mind.

1. Brain dump. What is on your mind? What needs to be done and how much time will it take? What can be delegated and what do you have to do?

2. Mind map. Push yourself to think beyond your brain dump, what else is there? You can write several columns with these headings or make circles with these in the middle and then list or make “lines” off your circles with what else might need to be considered: Look at work (marketing, business development, clients, staff, administration, finance, etc.), family, home/car, volunteer activities, meetings/events, friends/fun, money, health, and any others that have significant action items.

3. Park it. Use the concept of a “parking lot” to put things that are concepts or ideas, not urgent or important, and can be done later. Keep this as a post-it, task list or sheet of paper, as new things pop into your mind, you can jot them down to manage later. (These are non-task items)

4. Plan & Schedule. Mark the items that are very important or urgent and then plot out the next day or two of when you will do what and leave the rest of the list. Specify when you will do what so you can work through your list in a disciplined fashion. Plan blocks of time to manage phone calls, interruptions and other things that might get you off your schedule.

5. Book mark. Use a future to do list or a planning tool like Outlook to assign the other tasks that will be handled in a few days, next week, or in the future. This way you can get them out of your brain and know that you will not forget them. Our minds are like computers. The more windows and things open, the slower it runs. Likewise, the more things you try and hold in your mind, the slower you run.

Get everything out. Put it in the proper place (parking lot idea list, on a day schedule or bookmarked in a task list) and get going on the task at hand. Stay focused and do not divert. You will be amazed at how you make progress and how good you feel!

The challenge of staying organized through busy workdays and life is a challenge for even the best.  There are TONS of books on organization strategies out there with many tips and tricks on how to master chaos and achieve a sense of order in your environment. The challenge is that many are filled with concepts to adapt and are more philosophical with prescribed action versus a handbook with steps of HOW to get organized. I found Exploring Productivity and like it for its “idiots guide” type approach. It is easy to pick and address an issue versus reading the whole book and feeling overwhelmed with evaluating how you might transform your whole system of operation (if it gets overwhelming, you will not take any steps to change). This is a great book to have on the shelf, easy to read and excellent to reference to address and overcome whatever organizational challenge you may be having THIS week.