Category: Goals and Goal Setting

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Fundamentals Of Achievement

Here are two quotes from Robin Sharma.

“Success is really, really simple. It’s not easy, but it’s really simple.”

“Success lies in a masterful consistency around the fundamentals.”

Robin Sharma is the author of a number of best-selling books, including The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari and several others in that series and The Leader Who Had No Title. He is a speaker and consultant on Leadership and Personal Mastery, who numbers among his clients many of the top companies in the world, as well as leaders in governments, business, and entertainment. Robin has identified 8 fundamentals of achievement [Sharma] which I share with you today. Continue reading “Fundamentals Of Achievement”

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Effort or Results?

“The amateur focuses on outcomes and expects immediate results. The professional plays the long game and prioritizes the process, perfecting it for years with no immediate payoff.” ~ Ozan Varol

The Process

“We decided to use the approach that we’re not going to focus on the outcome. We were just going to focus on the process of what it took to play the best football you could play, which was to focus on that particular play as if it had a history and life of its own. Don’t look at the scoreboard, don’t look at any external factors, just all your focus and all your concentration, all your effort, all your toughness, all your discipline to execute went into that particular play. Regardless of what happened on that play, success or failure, you would move on to the next play and have the same focus to do that on the next play, and you’d then do that for 60 minutes in a game and then you’d be able to live with the results regardless of what those results were.” ~ Nick Saban [Elmasry]

Nick Saban is considered by many people to be the most successful coach in college football. He has a lifetime record of 218 wins, 62 losses (and 1 tie). He is tied with the legendary Paul “Bear” Bryant for most NCAA championships. [Wikipedia] Saban credits much of his success to the fact that he and his teams follow what he calls “The Process.” Continue reading “Effort or Results?”

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Want to change a behavior? Change your environment.

“Many of our repeated behaviors are cued by everyday environments, even though people think they’re making choices all the time.” ~ Wendy Wood

You and I may think we’re in control of our actions, but research shows that nearly ½ of human behaviors occurs in the same location each day and is cued by the environment. [Duke Today] Recall Charles Duhigg’s “habit loop”, the 3-step process that causes habits to develop. [Duhigg] The habit loop consists of 1) cue, 2) routine, and 3) reward. Repetition of this loop over time causes a behavior (the routine) to become ingrained as habit.

According to Wendy Wood, formerly the James B. Duke professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke and now at the University of Southern California, the cue is often our environment. Continue reading “Want to change a behavior? Change your environment.”

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Magic Thinking

Forget magic. Real accomplishments require hard work.

“What’s missing, what we’re really looking for, is magic. Without realizing it, we want that momentary pleasure or excitement we feel to be a passageway into a whole new world—a world of ease. Unfortunately, it’s a world that doesn’t exist. Reality requires us to face three things: pain, uncertainty, and the need for constant work. No one, no matter how famous or rich, is exempt from these requirements.” ~ Dr. Phil Stutz, “Addiction and Magical Thinking”

Hard work is required.

Are you prepared to do the work required to succeed in reaching your BIG goals? Make no mistake – the Excelerated life is not achieved without effort. Sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes it’s boring. Many times, you’ll want to do something else. There will be times when you can’t tell that you are making any progress at all Continue reading “Magic Thinking”

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Goals Are For Losers

Do you prefer winning once in a while or winning every day? That’s a difference between having a goal and having a system.

“. . . as far as I can tell, the people who use systems do better. The systems-driven people have found a way to look at the familiar in new and more useful ways. To put it bluntly, goals are for losers.” ~ Scott Adams

Goals vs. Systems

Goals are for losers? That’s a pretty odd statement for me to endorse as someone who spends his working time helping and encouraging people to set and achieve goals. However, after reading this in How To Fail At Almost Everything And Still Win Big by Scott Adams, best-selling author and the creator of the Dilbert comic strip, I have to say he has a good point. Continue reading “Goals Are For Losers”

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Make Your Contribution Greater Than Your Reward

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” ~ Howard Thurman

In the book, The 10 Laws Of Lifetime Growth, authors Dan Sullivan and Catherine Nomura share their ideas, captured in 10 “laws” or principles, for continued growth, self-development, flourishing, and a lifetime of contribution and service. Continue reading “Make Your Contribution Greater Than Your Reward”

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SMART+Plus Goals

“The tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goals to reach.” —Benjamin E. Mays

You have likely heard of setting SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time-bound) goals. In addition to those criteria, research in positive psychology and goal-setting has identified some other guidelines to help us create goals that will increase the positive effect of goal-setting. These are SMART+Plus goals.

According to www.statisticbrain.com, 45% of Americans “always” make New Year’s resolutions and another 17% “occasionally” make them. How many people successfully achieve their resolutions? Eight per-cent!

The statistics also show that “People who explicitly make resolutions are 10 times more likely to attain their goals than people who don’t explicitly make resolutions.” Continue reading “SMART+Plus Goals”

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Remembering 2017

“When you think about it and apply yourself, you are creating your life. When you don’t think about it and do whatever, you are creating your life.” ~ Holiday Mathis

The new year is often a time for beginning new things. We make resolutions and set goals. Sometimes we make other new starts . . . a new assignment, a new project, a new job. It can be exciting, and sometimes a little scary, to make a fresh start and the new year just naturally offers a place to start anew.

Before jumping headlong into the new year, it can be beneficial and freeing to reflect on the year we are finishing up. Continue reading “Remembering 2017”

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Have A Plan

“What is your dearest wish? What dreams do you have for the future? What do you want to be or do? Imagine your dream coming true. How wonderful would it be. How fulfilling.

“What holds you back from realizing your wish? What is it in you that stops you from really going for it?” ~ Gabriele Oettingen, Rethinking Positive Thinking

What holds you back?

As we near the end of another year, take a moment to reflect on this year that has nearly passed. Think back to January. Did you have big dreams? Make any resolutions? Set a BIG goal? Now that the year is almost over, how are you doing? Are you still on track? Continue reading “Have A Plan”

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Life’s Summons

“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep need meet.” ~ Frederick Buechner

What does Life want from you? Most of us, if we think about it at all, typically ask “What do I want out of life?” (Some of us never even get that far . . . we coast from day to day, being blown this way and that by the winds of circumstance. However that’s a subject for another time.) But the question I have been contemplating for the past few weeks is not “What do I want from Life?” but “What does Life want from me?” I invite you to think about this question, too. Continue reading “Life’s Summons”