Hello again. After some amazing time off in Australia with my family I’m back in the saddle, and although battling the jet lag, I’m eager to start executing on 2018 goals.
You’ve no doubt heard the wise quote from Brian Tracy that. “Every minute you spend in planning saves 10 minutes in execution”, right?
Similarly, I’ve heard it said from one of my mentors that even if much of the first week of a quarter is taken up with planning, it frees your headspace to then execute fully on the plan for the next 11 weeks.
There is a pretty rigorous reflecting and planning process that I learned from mentor Peter Shallard and have been using for a few years now. As I become more practised in it I’m recognising some of the crucial keys to high performance goal setting which many out there may appreciate a heads up on. Whilst I can’t go into the entirety of the process with all it’s juicy details (we’re talking 7hrs+), I can at least share some key takeaways that could level up your ability to set and execute on your BHAGs (big hairy audacious goals).
Ever noticed how gyms are packed for the first 2 weeks of Jan but come the end of Jan the ‘new year new you’ hype has sort of fizzled out? Same goes for big financial goals plucked out of the air. These wishes that one might set and hope that they are magically manifested are typically lacking in some key building blocks of goal setting.
Now I’m not saying that I’m in anyway perfect but the goal setting process I referred to earlier that I do has been a key component to the results in our business over the last year. At the beginning of 2017 Chris and I set out to add 100 bed spaces to our SA portfolio. Although we fell a little short come 31st Dec, we will be within 7 beds of that target in Q1 thanks to the units secured in the pipeline.
So, without writing war and peace about goal setting, here are a handful of key learns that will no doubt be of value to others out there.
#1 BEGIN WITH INTELLIGENT REFLECTION because it forms a powerful foundation for planning, here’s why:
- Being a business owner makes you very tough on yourself, but intelligent reflection offers a way out of that.
- It gives you energy and inspiration to continue marching towards your goal, even in the face of feeling you’ll never be done.
- Most entrepreneurs have a lack of awareness of how much they’ve actually done and achieved in a year (in other words we get caught in the trap of looking at the out of reach summit of the mountain rather than congratulating ourselves on looking back and seeing how far we’ve come).
- It acts as a powerful post mortem analysis on mistakes that you can take valuable learning from
- It’s a way out of the ‘insanity cycle” i.e. doing the same thing and expecting different results
- You can surprise yourself with some easy wins i.e. getting clarity on something that got you great results and can be replicated going forwards.
Here are a few of the intelligent reflection questions (thinking about your 2017) to get you started:
- How did your beliefs or values really steer you right?
- What belief of yours got seriously challenged or tested?
- What behaviour(s) really caused you to win?
- What capability was lacking or let you down?
- What environment did you find or create that contributed your success?
#2 ECOLOGICAL GOAL SETTING
This is the real gold dust. This is the stuff that’s been taking me a while to embed but I’m really starting to see the power in it. You may wonder what is meant by ‘ecological’ in relation to goal setting.
Meaning of ecology from dictionary.com
‘the branch of biology dealing with the relations and interactions between organisms and their environment, including other organisms.’
In the context of goal setting, the purpose of ecology is all about alignment between the conscious and unconscious mind. Here’s why it’s so important – the unconscious mind has one sole job, to move you toward pleasure and away from pain. A lack of alignment is when your unconscious mind has a different opinion to your conscious mind.
In other words, self sabotage arises from setting certain goals when the unconscious mind doesn’t get the same excitement as the conscious mind, because it’s worried about pain.
Having also learned about highest values from Dr John Demartini, I liken this alignment concept to that ie knowing your highest values and either working in your areas of highest values or at least linking what you do to your highest values.
When alignment is in place motivation isn’t something that you need to hope and will into existence. With alignment, motivation shows up to help you execute on your vision. This is the BIGGEST SECRET of setting ecological goals.
So, here are some questions for layering in ecology to your goal setting:
- What specifically do you want? Write it out in positive terms, with specificity and in the present tense ie ‘It is 1st Jan 2019 and I’m sitting in (x location)….reviewing …numbers/financials.’ It’s super important to have your conscious mind aligned with your unconscious in all of this.
- Where are you now? It’s essential to document your present situation in relation to your outcome. What are your resources and numbers relative to what you want?
- What will you see, hear, feel when you have it? (This is super important for your unconscious motivation). Specify your outcome – how will the external world tell you it’s happened? What is it internally you will feel/tell yourself when you have it?
- What will this outcome get for you or allow you to do? Again, make sure this is aligned.
- Is it initiated and maintained by you? The goal must be entirely in your control. A well formed outcome must be entirely your responsibility and under your complete control.
- Is it appropriately contextualised? In other words, where, when, how and with whom do you want to experience achieving this goal? How do you bring your family, business partner, your health etc into this outcome?
You can see this is a whole different level to approach goal setting. Thoroughly thinking through the goal like this is designed to set your unconscious mind building a map, a reference place and foundation for what’s involved in achieving these goals.
I appreciate this is a lot to take in so if you got this far, well done. Even better, if you choose to act on this and implement it with your own goal setting you will be doing the work to set yourself up for a great year ahead.
As a closing note/tip, be sure to specify your very first step towards the big goal, and make it achievable. One of the fundamental requisites for change is to take action, and that’s easy when you know the first step!
Wishing you all a 2018 of good health, growth and fun.