I read a great book about a year ago called ‘Eat that Frog’ by Brian Tracy and more recently I was reading one of the one minute manager series of books, both reminded me of a few important concepts for setting goals and how you work. In January I took at least a day out to really think through what I wanted to do with my year in all areas of life. Now being a father of two – James and Harry and having lots on in life it’s great to consider how you want it all to look. Goal setting is really just the exercise of looking at where you want to get to and breaking it down into manageable steps to get there. In setting goals consider the 80/20 rule that 20% of your time achieves 80% of the results you want and ask yourself for each goal if it’s really important to you getting the things you want – my wife loves formatting things really nicely in Microsoft word and sometimes I’ll show her things I’m working on but it’s easy to spend heaps of time formatting documents and playing with spacing – I see this as the 80% of time you spend getting 20% of results! You could otherwise move on just a bit quicker and do something far more important that moves you toward what you want in life. That’s the power of the 80/20 rule. Thinking through what outcome you’ll get from doing anything helps to see if it’s worth doing too.
This is what I did in January:
Step 1: Make a list of roles, categories or areas of your life, here are mine in no particular order:
Father
Husband
Christian
Money Manager
Work
Individual
Family & Friends
Step 2: Write your vision for each area – I define a vision as something enduring, it’s not a point you actually reach – that’s a goal. A vision is more like general rules you want to live by for your whole life. I’ll give an example below.
Step 3: Write down some goals which support you making progress toward what you’ve said in your vision. I have about 2-5 for each category.
Step 4: You could do this for just the most important goal under each category – write all the reasons why it is absolutely a must to achieve that goal this year. Goals get you started, but reasons keep you going toward your goals.
Step 5: Out of all your goals what are the top 4 that if you did nothing else this year you’d want to do them? – Underline them/highlight them in some way.
Step 6: This is from the one minute sales person book and something you can try to give some reality to achieving your goals – write out a story/ description as if you’d already achieved the goal, write how you feel, be descriptive so you can really picture it in your mind.
Step 7: Read your goals regularly
Here’s an example of the process
Category - Work
Vision
• I am being the best I can be, I’m helping others and making a real difference in the lives of those I work with – team members, clients, managers.
• I am working hard but not long hours (and not worrying about what my co-worker think!).
• I feel relaxed after work and can switch off to it.
Goals
• Improve my skills for 30 minutes each day by reading / practising xyz
• Work 40 hours a week and finish at 5.30pm most days
o I must do this so that I have some balance in my life. Forcing myself to get the same done in less time will make me learn new skills and build greater productivity. I will be able to enjoy so much more every night because I’ll have time to do what I want and won’t feel exhausted from a long day in the office.
Story of having achieved the goal
It’s September 2009. I’ve just had my performance review with my boss Mark and I was really confident about what he’d tell me. He gave me a glowing report! Saying that something had really changed in the way I worked this year – my colleagues had learnt a lot from me and I’d delivered almost everything ahead of schedule! Fantastic work he says, you are an invaluable member of our team. It makes me smile and I feel great, work is turning out to be challenging and actually enjoyable. I think about how much more relaxed I’ve been leaving work at 5.30pm and getting home with time to exercise, experiment with some cooking, read some books – I have so much more energy! I feel relaxed and energised and it’s been great to finally have the time to do some dancing lessons with my girlfriend.
How would you feel if you achieved your goals?
I think you’ll find it’s a valuable exercise to spend time on. And a reminder - there’s no point beating yourself up about your past because you can’t change it. Just learn lessons from your mistakes and commit to a new course of action that is making progress toward the things you want in life.
Back to the book ‘Eat that Frog’ – Here’s something Brian Tracy says that I liked:
“It has been said for many years that if the first thing you do each morning is to eat a live frog, you can go through the day with the satisfaction of knowing that it was probably the worst thing that is going to happen to you all day long.
Your ‘frog’ is your biggest, most important task, the one you are most likely to procrastinate on if you don’t do something about it now. It is also the one task that can have the greatest positive impact on your life and results at the moment”
So what frog are you going to eat first thing Saturday morning and then at work on Monday – commit to it now – leave a post it note at your desk or a reminder on your phone and don’t do anything else when you get to work except eat that frog.
