In Taking Action For Personal Success – Part II, I discussed some applications from a coaching perspective that I use and you can utilize as well.
In Taking Action For Personal Success – Part III, I discussed failure to act and how to over come this.
Today I’m going to discuss…
Personal Goals and Values
As a coach, I support my clients in creating value-based goals. Before any goal setting takes place, my client must first determine what their values are. Orienting the goals around my client‘s values will make them compelling and will pull the client forward and reach their personal success.
Most of us live full and busy lives with competing demands for our precious time and energy. We need to priorities so that only those things that really matter get our full energy. By creating goals based on our values we ensure the optimal return on our investment of time and energy, because our success will be in the areas that matter the most to us.
There are many reasons why people make goals for themselves that are not aligned with their values or are not as closely aligned with their values as other personal goals. A common reason is pressure from others such as family and friends. An example of this is the person who feels pressure to pursue a particular career because other members of the family are in that profession or it has a high status in their family and the community. Or the person who feels compelled to take on a family business or farm or to marry early.
Another reason why people make goals for themselves that are not aligned with their values is social pressure from peers. Perhaps they move in a social circle where everyone has a particular type of house or car, or perhaps a holiday house. All of a sudden they find themselves working towards a goal of buying a new house without ever thinking about whether this is what they really want in their lives, or whether it aligns with their values.
This mental strength misalignment can present itself in two ways. Firstly they can achieve the goal and then be left wondering why it doesn‘t make them as happy as they thought it might. Alternatively, it can manifest itself as setting goals that are never achieved. For example, an individual can say that his goal is to buy a more prestigious property but then spend all his spare money on other things. Not achieving the goal can then damage their self esteem, making it harder for him to set more meaningful goals in the future and reach their peak personal performance.
A common reason why people make goals is because it’s “the right thing to do.” This is why giving up smoking and going to the gym appear so frequently on lists of New Year‘s resolution. These are both admirable goals and, if pursued for the right reasons, will reap rewards. However, making a goal because it is expected of you is unlikely to result in success. Staying motivated and committed will be difficult if your goal is not aligned with your values. You will be far more likely to succeed in a goal that helps you to be aligned with your better self, and which supports your vision of the way the world should be. These sorts of goals will not only be more achievable, but will bring the most lasting joy.
Creating a Process
Once a person is in a place where they want to begin setting goals, there are any number of tools, systems and strategies that can be provide for you to plan and document your goals. It‘s important that whatever process you choose that it supports you and doesn‘t drive you in a direction of its own making. A process or system that has values attached to it so ensure the values and you are aligned. New Year‘s resolutions are built around a particular belief and if you don't hold this belief then you will not create goals around this time. As with all techniques there is, of course, no hard and fast rule. Making and keeping goals is an art rather than a science. There are many paths to successful goal achievement.
Although there are many ways to achieve goals, there are a few "tried and true" principles that you can use to support you to achieve your goals.
1. Keep Goals Up Front. A good question to ask a yourself when you have developed a set of goals is “How can I keep those goals in sight so that I don‘t forget about them”. You may then choose to write them down, put them in a prominent place or review them daily. You may choose to create an “affirmation” or positive statement about each goal that you repeat to yourself each morning.
2. Lookout for Hijackers. Goals and actions must work together. If a person has a goal of spending more time with his or her family, and they then consider taking on a job that includes huge amounts of interstate travel, then their goal is likely to be hijacked. Keeping goals upfront is a good way for you to avoid this. Another way is for you to ask “How will this decision support my goals?” or “Will this take me closer or further from my goals?” Remember, everyone has every right to put aside goals that no longer serve them. The support that I offer is gently…and sometimes not so gently…leading them through a thought process which compares their actions to their goals so that they don‘t inadvertently sabotage them. After they go through this process, they can then choose to let a goal drop away for other reasons.
3. Sprint, Don’t Walk – Remember that goals are a series of sprints not a marathon. That is, you give it all got for a “short” burst, then take a “breather.” This short burst can be to your first milestone or short-term goal. Swaying from time to time happens to all of us. It is the journey that counts. One of the reasons why clients shy away from setting goals is that they fear that they will be criticized for not reaching milestones. It‘s essential that they know that their support, coach, friend will never criticize or judge them, but will provide support to them when they fall over the inevitable hurdles that get between them and their goals. Setting a combination of short and long term goals is important. Long-term goals provide a vision; short-term steps along the way help us to remain focused and to feel a sense of achievement.
4. Remain Flexible. Don’t be so rigid in reaching your personal goals that you close yourself off from opportunities that suddenly present themselves. As you achieve success you’ll move from the realm of the “known” and discover things that they “didn‘t know they didn‘t know”. This new information creates an impacts on your future goals. It is a natural and positive thing for individuals to alter personal goals or to simply let them go. The difference between failure to meet a goal, and simply letting the goal go, because it no longer serves you, comes back to your values. By keeping focused on your values you can feel free to rework goals when necessary to match your evolving “reality”.
5. Support: Some goals can be achieved alone, but some require the support of others. For example, a goal to keep a house more tidy and inviting requires the support of everyone who lives there, not you. Similarly, there are many workplace goals that require the consent of a number of players. When supporting my client to make goals, I often ask whether the goal requires the cooperation of others and helping them to develop strategies to either gain the support of the other players or alternatively to reshape the goal.
6. Structures: You’re much more likely to achieve goals if you have structures in place to support them. When my clients are making goals I have two roles. One role is to encourage and “enthuse” them; the other is to make sure that they maximize the chance of success by putting in place a structure. A typical question is “What can you put in place to make this goal easier to achieve?”
7. Phrase Goals in the Positive, instead of the negative. You will have much more success in achieving goals if you feel you are being pulled towards something positive rather than pushing away from something negative. There are a number of ways that I support my clients to work from ‘what they want’, as opposed to ‘what they don’t want’ or want to leave behind. One strategy is to reframe and use positive language. For example, if you say, “I want to leave my dull and unrewarding job and get a better one”, I would respond, “OK, what kind of job DO you want that would make you feel fulfilled and excited to get up each day for work.”
8. Accountability. Some clients want me to be a strong accountability partner. They expect me to remember their goals and to question them about milestones. Other clients may find this like a boss or babysitter. Many only wan to discuss goals with me in their own time and don’t want to return if things are going well. It’s important to determine the level of accountability YOU require and then go get it. As a coach I never assume that my role is to hold someone to account for goals unless my client specifically requests this. If someone comes to you with their personal goals a good question to ask is “How can I best support you to achieve these goals?” or “Would you like me to be an accountability partner for these goals? How would you see that working?”
9. Getting Attached: Often we get locked into a goal, feeling perhaps that the goal is “a must have.” If we do not achieve the goal we may feel like a failure. Here is an opportunity to reframe the situation so that you can go for the goal and not get locked into it. You will be free to set much bigger and higher goals with a relaxed state of mind. If you focus only on the end result you’ll miss the journey. You won‘t be present and as a result may not notice that you need to alter the route or simply readjust the goal.
10. Celebrate! It is so important to celebrate the achievement of personal goals and personal success. Celebrate the achievement with your friends, family, coworkers and encourage them to celebrate their achievements as well. Encourage them and yourself to celebrate the small steps. A great question to ask when goal setting is “How are you going to celebrate reaching this magnificent goal?”
I’ll be continuing this topic next week. Until then please share your thoughts in the comments below
Roland Gilbert
If you’d really like to make fast progress towards realizing your full personal power and potential as well as develop the mindset of confidence, request your Introductory Consultation today!
Roland Gilbert
Roland N. Gilbert is Vice-President and founder of the Perennial Consulting Group a management consulting, coaching and sales force development firm that focuses on overcoming fear and other limiting beliefs and creating empowering solutions so that individuals can live out their passions!
No comments:
Post a Comment