Tag: Personal Development

Demonstrate Courage: Habit #6 of High Performers

Posted on by wakeupitsdayone in Book Reviews, Mindset, Uncategorized

Over the past five posts, I have shared with you the first five habits of high performing people, according to Brendon Burchard. Today, I share with you the last and sixth habit of high performing people: Demonstrating Courage. Though this is the last habit it might be the most powerful. Deeply rooted in this habit are practices that can help avoid inaction and allow you to chase your dreams. Most people think it takes superhuman powers to be courageous, but it’s not and I share with you Brendan’s tips below.

To start, the first thing we need to do is flip the way we think about fear. Fear is a feeling in your mind and body telling you that you can’t do something. And of course, you can’t do something if you have never attempted to do that something. To overcome fear you simply just need to get more comfortable with fear itself.

So, the way to combat fear and become courageous lies in the action you choose to take. The more you take action to overcome your fear the more confident you become. Simple.
Now since we have the right mindset we can follow the practices below that high performers use to help them demonstrate courage

Practice 1: Honor the struggle

Recognize that there are only two narratives in a human story: Struggle and Progress

As a human, we all have a choice. We can choose to let our struggles bring us down or we can view a challenging moment as something that will make us better and stronger. Honoring the struggle is the first step in realizing that to achieve anything in life you must be OK with knowing that you are going to have to do something that will most likely challenge you like you never been challenged before.

What is something you can do today or this week that is difficult, or challenging?

Practice 2: Share your truth and ambitions

As Brendan puts it, “the main motivation of humankind is to be free, to express our true self and pursue our dreams without restriction – to experience what may be called personal freedom”. Tell others how you feel about things, and share your goals and dreams with them. By not telling others about your true feelings and desires you are holding yourself back from becoming the person you want to be.

Practice 3: Find someone to fight for

High performers try to find one person they can fight for. It helps them center themselves to help them stay motivated and inspire them through their day-to-day challenges.

Who is someone in your life that you can fight for?

If you felt like these 6 habits were helpful feel free to purchase the book here or check out this blog, podcast, and website here for other helpful insight on living your best life. Remember, making the choice to read through the practices is the first step. The second step is putting action towards implementing them into your day.

Now, Wake Up! It’s Day One.

Develop Influence: Habit #5 of High Performers

Posted on by wakeupitsdayone in Book Review Monday, Uncategorized

So far we have discussed Brendon Burchards 4 first habits of High Performers (Seek Clarity, Generate Energy, Raise Necessity, Increase Productivity). Today, I share with you #5: Develop Influence. Before we dive into the practices of becoming a more influential person, let’s start with what it means to be influential and what makes high performers more influential than most.

According to Brendon Burchard, he states in his book that “having influence” means: the ability to shape others peoples beliefs and behaviors as you desire.

What does that look like? How do people shape beliefs and behaviors?

They just ask for what they want more

According to studies referenced in the book the most simple way to get someone to follow or buy-in to your idea is to ask them. Many studies show that people are more willing to say yes up to three times as often as people thought they would. And other studies show that people overestimate at to which point they will be judged for their ideas. So, it’s simple. The people who ask for what they want have two things in common that are highly correlated to high performance – They are clear on what they want and are willing to take a risk that will them learn and grow.

They give and do not look for anything in return

High performers have a giving mindset. They rarely give and ask for something in return. They are constantly looking to find ways to give to others.

They are a champion of the people

Appreciating people is the first step to becoming a champion of the people. The second and more difficult step for most is learning about others with whom you lead, work with, or our friends with. By understanding their passions and goals you can beyond appreciating them, and become their champion.

Now, think about the most influential person in your life? When you come up with that person ask yourself these questions:

  1. What, specifically made each person so influential to you?
  2. What was the greatest lesson each person taught you about life?
  3. What values or traits did they inspire you to embody in your own life?

You most likely will find that they share some of the same qualities discussed above. To become like that person I share with you three helpful practices that you can take action on to start to be more influential:

Practice One: Teach people how to think

No matter if you are a leader of a large organization, individual contributor, or just simply a human being, we all have the ability to teach someone how to think. The good and bad thing is that there is no right or wrong way to teach someone how to think because each one of us sees the world in our own way. This presents a challenge for trying to influence or change the way someone thinks about something. An easy way to do it is by using a phrase like the ones listed below:

  • Think of it this way
  • What do you think about
  • What would happen if we tried
  • How should we approach
  • What should we be paying attention to

By using phrases like that you are effectively teaching others how to think and influencing their behaviors by opening their perspective. To further help you think about ways to influence others, ask yourself questions like this:

  1. How do you want them to think about themselves?
  2. How do you want to them to think about other people?
  3. How do you want them to think about the world at large?

Practice Two: Challenge people to Grow

No surprise here, but high performers love a challenge. It is so deep rooted in their habits and behaviors that they easily find ways to challenge others. They typically focus in three areas when trying to challenge someone:

Character

  • By giving feedback, direction, and high expectations to live up to the best version of themselves. Here are some ways to challenge others characters in a non-direct way:
    • Ask people, Looking back, do you feel you gave it your all
    • Are you bringing the best of you to this situation?
    • What values were you trying to embody when you did that?

Connections

  • Asking people how they treat and add value to others is a way to challenge their relationship with others. High performers believe in teamwork, and treating everyone with respect. They tend to say comments like this in social settings or 1 on 1:
    • Listen to one another more
    • Show each other some respect
    • Support each other more

Contribution

  • Push people to add value whether you are having a good or bad day. This is not a one size fits all approach. Depending on the person you should tailor your conversation with them so you can help them add the most value in their own way.

Practice Three: Role Model the Way

High performers spend most of their days thinking about how to be a role model to others. They have a laser-focused intention on how they can act in a way that helps others become who they want to be, and help them achieve specific outcomes. To become a role model, you can use these thoughts and questions below:

  • If I were going to approach my relationships and career as an even better role model, the first things I would start doing are……
  • Some who really needs me to lead and be a strong role model right now is….
  • Some ideas on how I can be a role model for that person are……
  • If ten years from now, the five closest people to me in my life were to describe me as a role model, I would hope would say things like

If you felt like these were helpful feel free to purchase the book here or check out this blog, podcast, and website here for other helpful insight on living your best life. Remember, making the choice to read through the practices is the first step. The second step is putting action towards implementing them into your day.

Now, Wake Up! It’s Day One.

Generate Energy: Habit #2 of High Performers

Posted on by wakeupitsdayone in Book Review Monday, Effort, Feeling, Mindset, Perception, Uncategorized

Last week I discussed the first habit of high performers: Seeking Clarity. Today, I share with you the second habit of high performers: Generate Energy

According to Brendon Burchard, high performers learn how to generate energy which helps them perform at a lnhigh level over a long period of time. Now, to be clear Brendan in his book defines energy as the “holistic kind that includes positive and enduring mental, physical, and emotional vibrancy. “

Why is energy so important? Well, no surprise here but low energy is highly correlated with low performing success, and high performance is tied to high energy. People with high energy achieve much more success in their primary field of interest than their peers. The great thing about energy is that it is not something that you are born with. Energy comes from transforming the way you think and feel about any given situation. To help generate energy throughout your day Brendon shares with you practices in his book. I discuss below the two practices that I found to be really helpful:

Practice One – Release Tension, Set Intention

The easiest, fastest and most effective way to help increase energy is to teach yourself how to master daily transitions according to Brendon Burchard. A few examples of daily transitions are when you wake up in the morning from sleeping to waking, when you go from commuting to walking into work, and finally, the most obvious transition is when you come out of that meeting that didn’t go as planned and you have to hop into another one. We all experience many transitions throughout the day which impact our energy levels.

To start increasing your energy levels you need to recognize how you feel throughout certain situations and how you interact with others. A good way to start would be to write down all the transitions you go through on a given day. After you do that you can ask yourself these questions to help you understand how you think and feel throughout each one.

  • Do you ever carry over any negative energy from one activity to the other?
  • Do you ever feel depleted but still plow into your next activity without a break, even though you know you should take a breather?
  • What if you could change the way you think before each transition throughout the day? What would the impact be? How would you be able to do that?

Now, since you have a good understand of the daily transitions and how you feel and interact with them you can use Brendon’s technique which he calls release tension, set intention.

Here is how it works:

  1. Before walking into the next transition of your day close your eyes for a minute or two.
  2. Now, say the release in your mind over and over again. As you do command your body to release all the tension in your shoulders, in your neck, in your face and jaw.
  3. After you have felt all the tension being released, now you can set your intention for the next transition.

Practice Two: Bring the Joy

As you know one of the greatest joys of being a human is that you have a choice, and you can choose how you feel at every moment throughout the day. High performers recognize this and choose to “bring the joy” to their day by implementing habits that allow them to focus on positive thoughts and feelings. Here are six habits high performers try to implement into their day to day according to Brendan’s research:

  1. They spend time thinking about how they want to feel in advance of a key event.
  2. They strongly believe that their actions will be rewarded.
  3. They prepare themselves for moments when things go wrong. Remember their high performers are no different then you and I. They are human.
  4. They want to interject challenge into their day.
  5. They steer social interactions into positive emotions.
  6. They reflect on how grateful they are.

What better way to practice “bringing the joy” then starting your day with simple questions:

  • What can I be excited about today?
  • What or who might trip me up or cause stress, and how can I respond in a positive way, from my highest self?
  • Who can I surprise today with a thank you, a gift, or a moment of appreciation?

If you felt like these were helpful feel free to purchase the book here or check out this blog, podcast, and website here for other helpful insight on living your best life. Remember, making the choice to read through the practices is the first step. The second step is putting action towards implementing them into your day.

Now, Wake Up! It’s Day One.

Seeking Clarity: #1 Habit of High Performers

Posted on by wakeupitsdayone in Action, Book Review Monday, Book Reviews, Day One, Mindset, Purpose, Uncategorized

A few months ago I was recommended a book called High-Performance Habits: How Extraordinary people come that way. It is written by Brendon Burchard a high-performance coach who is widely regarded as one of the best in his field. Over the past 20 years, he set out to understand three fundamental questions:

  1. Why do some individuals and teams succeed more quickly than others and sustain that success over the long-term?
  2. Of those who pull it off, why are some miserable and other happy on their journey?
  3. What motivates people to reach for higher levels of success in the first place, and what kinds of habits, training, and support help them improve faster?

These questions led him to speak with some of the highest performing athletes and business professionals the world has ever seen. He was able to uncover a ton of research and data to help him understand the answers. With all of this information, he was able to write this book.

Instead of doing my traditional review of the book, I felt like this book was really helpful and insightful to the point I wanted to break down each part to make sure you can really grasp his concepts since they can be really life-changing.

Brendon discovered that there are six habits of high performing* people. For the next six weeks I will post about each one:

  1. Seek Clarity
  2. Generate Energy
  3. Raise Necessity
  4. Increase Productivity
  5. Develop Influence
  6. Demonstrate Courage

*For the purpose of his book, high performance refers to succeeding beyond standard norms, consistently over the long-term.

Today, I will be sharing with you his first habit of high performance: Seeking Clarity

Let’s, start by answering this question: What does it mean to seek clarity?

It is remaining focused on today, and the present moment, while thinking about tomorrow and the future. Really tough to do, and balance your time between being present and thinking about what is next. Brendon’s research showed was that High Performers have figured out how to do it, and they centered their focus on the future into these core statements:

  • Who they are
  • Why they are here
  • What they wanted
  • How they were going to get there
  • What they found meaningful and fulfilling

Seems like pretty easy things to know, but you would be surprised that very few people have spent time thinking about those statements above.

To understand further into how Brendon went about his research on seeking clarity he interviewed people asking them questions like this:

  • Which things are you absolutely clear about that help you perform better than your peers?
  • What do you do when you are feeling uncertain, or undirected?
  • What aren’t you clear about, and how does that affect your performance?

By asking these questions he was able to identify how high performing people use clarity as the #1 habit for performing at levels that are so much higher than their peers.

Using all of his data and experience he lays out three simple practices for you to use to help you seek clarity in your life:

Practice 1: Envision the future four

  1. Self – You must know who you want to become. Have a vision for your future-self. An easy exercise to help you:
    • Think about yourself in daily situations with co-workers, your kids, and your wife. Is that person you want to be? If you do not like how you are, then ask yourself how would I want to be. Now, write down three aspirational words that represent how you want to be and use them as your guide
  2. Social – Understand how they want to treat other people
    • Write down each person name in your family and professional life that you see regularly
    • Imagine it is 20 years from and each person is describing why they love and respect you. If they had just three words, what would you want those words to be?
    • Next time, you are with them use that time to demonstrate those three qualities.
  3. Skill – Think about what you want your future to be like. Then understand the skills needed to get there, and obsess over obtaining those skills.
    • Think about your primary field of interest and write down three skills that make people successful
    • Under each skill, write down what you will do to develop it. Will you read, practice, get a coach, got to a training? Set up a plan to develop those skills.
    • Now think about your primary field of interest and write down three skills that you will need in order to succeed in that field five to ten years from now.
  4. Service – They care more about their service towards others than themselves.
    • For example, low performers ask themselves questions like this, “How can I get by with the least amount of effort” and high performs say, “ How can I serve with excellence”

Practice 2: Determine the feeling you are after

High performers define the feeling they are after. They know exactly what that feeling is and they do whatever it takes to there. They ask themselves, what is the primary feeling I want to “bring” to this situation and what is the primary feeling I want to “get”? As Brandon, shares from his studies he finds that underperformers shy away from the feelings they want.

Practice 3: Define what’s meaningful

High performers tend to take in four factors when describing something as meaningful.

  • They feel enthusiasm towards that project or goal. For example, most high performers wake up and ask themselves “What can I get excited or enthusiastic about today?
  • They factor in their connection and value challenges over comfort. They want to be around peers and family who challenge them not make them feel comfortable.
  • Satisfaction: High performers said they feel relate satisfaction with meaning and an equation Brandon puts together is this:

Passion + Growth + Contribution = Personal Satisfaction

  • Life Makes Sense: High performers want to know that everything happens for a reason. They want to feel like their effort is helping them or others work something greater than themselves and that their life has a purpose.

If you felt like these were helpful feel free to purchase the book here or check out this blog, podcast, and website here for other helpful insight on living your best life. Remember, making the choice to read through the practices is the first step. The second step is putting action towards implementing them into your day.

Now, Wake Up! It’s Day One.

Leadership Lessons from Pete Carroll (My Spirit Animal)

Posted on by wakeupitsdayone in Book Reviews

Outside of my mentors and defining moments, books have accelerated my learning both professionally and personally, and I truly believe that reading is the single most important thing you can do to better yourself. In light of this, on Monday’s I will be reviewing a book that has impacted me.

Today’s Book is Win Forever: Live, Work, and Play like a Champion by Pete Carroll with Yogi Roth.

Brief Summary:

This is an autobiography of Pete Carroll. He shares stories and lessons he learned while coaching in the NFL and CFB along with his philosophy: Win Forever.

Things I learned from this book:

4 Important Leadership Lessons from Pete:

  • Your #1 job as the leader is to bring the energy. Whether it be practice, team meetings, or 1 on 1 conversations. You’re responsible for setting the tone.
  • Every person on your team no matter what has the opportunity to compete at any level as long as they put in the work every single day. Experience does not guarantee the best spot on the team. All players compete every day to earn and keep their role.
  • It is extraordinary value to know your people, and it is worth a significant investment of your time. Pete is labeled as a “Players Coach,” and I hope when I retire my teams will remember me as a “Players Coach.” As does Pete, I lead people because I enjoy building a lifelong relationship to help them achieve their life goals.
  • The hardest thing for a leader to do is to NOT approach someone in a manner that may disrupt or shatter their self-confidence. It is our job as leaders to create an environment where we help grow people’s confidence not destroy it.

Pete Carroll’s Philosophy for achieving your potential

“If you want to win forever, always compete” is the philosophy of Pete Carroll. To live this philosophy each day, you must focus on two things: always try to improve and do things better than they have ever been done before.
Competition in Pete’s mind is not between two individuals or two teams, but a mentality and way to approach each day. Typically, when we think about the competition, we think of competing against others. In Pete’s mind, he views the biggest competition you face is yourself and maximizing your ability to reach your potential every single day. Pete emphasis many times throughout the book that you must understand you have no control over what others do. You only have control of your energy and focus on trying to be your best.
Breaking down Pete’s Philosophy:

27505b7319fea2d554763cb16492a2ba--life-coaching-seattle-seahawks.jpg

You must build your own philosophy to reach your potential:

To realize your potential, you must have a consistent philosophy. If you change who you are from year to year, you’re never going to be great at anything. If the goals, values, and beliefs you have laid out for yourself are true, then you will be able to stay on track when things get tough. The natural part will be building your philosophy. The tough part will be sticking to it, but if you do it will be your guide.

Whenever Pete Carroll does speaking engagements about his “Win Forever” philosophy, he starts with asking the crowd someone to share their philosophy in 25 or fewer words. Majority of the attendees can never do it. Could you?

Practice is everything

Preparation and training should be designed, so your team is being trained for all potential outcomes. Each person on the team should feel as if they had seen every situation before seeing it in the game. By approaching and practicing this way, you build superior trust and confidence in yourself and your team to execute at any moment.
The second piece of practice is the environment, and it should always be promoting learning and building confidence. Pete believed that creating competition between teammates was a way to create this type of situation. He called it the “Competitive Cauldron,” and he established specific training for each day of the week:

  • Tell the Truth Monday: Review last week and make sure the entire team was aware of the good and bad of last week.
  • Competition Tuesday: A day filled with individual competition between players
  • Turnover Wednesday: If the offense kept the ball away from the defense all day. They won. If the defense created a turnover. They won the day.
  • No Repeat Thursday: The goal of this practice day was to review the game plan and go over each play. The end goal is to never have to repeat any play.
  • Review Friday: Walkthrough game plan and paid strict attention to all details.

How this book has Impacted me:

Towards the end of the book, Pete shares a story when starting as head coach of the Seattle Seahawks. He was asked which is better: Winning or Competing. It was a simple response to him…COMPETING.
When I read this, I knew two things instantly: Pete Carroll is my spirit animal, AND we share a similar philosophy on life and leadership. He believes no matter where you came from or what situation you find yourself in today, win or lose you can always compete and always improve. This is the exact idea of my mindset I call Day One. We all face many setbacks in life and have bad days, but it is always OK because tomorrow when we wake up, it is day one. You get the opportunity to compete again.
Now, Wake Up! It’s Day One. Time to make a choice: Are you going to compete today or not? Buy the book here: Win Forever: Live, Work, and Play like a Champion

Wake Up! It’s Book Review Monday – Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success by Phil Jackson

Posted on by wakeupitsdayone in Book Review Monday, Book Reviews, Effort, Feeling

Outside of my mentors and defining moments, books have accelerated my learning both professionally and personally, and I truly believe that reading is the single most important thing you can do to better yourself. In light of this, on Monday’s I will be reviewing a book that has impacted me.
Today’s book is Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success by Phil Jackson and Hugh Delehanty. If you are a 90’s bulls fan. READ THIS BOOK.

Brief Summary:

This book is a memoir of Phil Jackson’s time playing and coaching in the NBA. He shares his stories of playing with the Knicks, leading the 90’s Bulls to 6 rings and reviving his coaching career with the 2000’s Lakers to win 5 rings. Throughout the book, he ties into each story his 11 principles of leadership that he believes guided him to coaching his teams to 11 championships.

Things I learned from this book:

Lead from the inside out:

This is Phil’s first leadership principle. He believes that most leaders try to do whatever everyone else is doing, or the latest management technique. Instead, he says just lead from the heart and be authentic.
I found this as the single most important and most natural principle to master to become a great leader. Though I like to read and learn about leadership, nothing will stop me from just being me and leading with my heart. One of the things I have learned over time is that trust is an essential factor in leadership. Nobody wants to work for someone who is fake or acting like they are someone that they are not. When you lead from the heart people will trust you. It’s that simple.
When I think about the people I lead at work, I don’t view them as employees or co-workers; I see them as humans that have given me the opportunity to help them reach their potential not only in work but in life. I care about their success and work as hard as I can to make them feel that we are in this together. I hope that every rep I lead feels that we shared unique experiences and moments that will create a life-long bond.

The road to freedom is a beautiful system:

As we all know, Phil Jackson was a big believer in the triangle offense. What he loved most about it was that it gave players a system in which to operate, but also let them use their own instincts and knowledge to decide what pass or shot to take in the heat of the moment.
What I took away from Phil was that you must train the entire team to use one effective framework/system that can help them do their job in the way you believe is best. How they operate within the framework or system is up to them. As a leader, I can quickly identify each rep’s strengths and weaknesses within the system to help them be better. For example, I have a framework on how to run an effective demo. It is not a script or a word for word guide. It is a simple framework that helps guide the rep from beginning to end of a call. The rep has their own talk track that they can insert into the framework, and I believe that if they follow the process, they will be successful in the role.

Focus on the spirit, not the scoreboard:

Teams are at their strongest when they give up self-interest for the greater good of the team. Here is a story Phil shares in the book about the importance of working as a team:
“The Samurai wanted to teach his sons the power of teamwork. So he gave each of them an arrow and asked them to break it. No problem. Each son did it easily. Then the samurai gave them a bundle of three arrows bound together and asked them to repeat the process. But none of them could. “That’s your lesson,” the samurai said. If you three stick together you will never be defeated.”
This taught me that if the team wins or lose, we win or lose together. From the first day I led a group of people, I made it clear that there was no individual person (including me as the leader) who was greater than the team. It seems like a simple concept to some, but Phil made me realize that it was one of the important things I had to make clear to my team as the leader.
I also learned the best way to hold an employee accountable is to have their teammates hold them accountable. Although I am technically the leader, my title has no meaning. In my mind, we are all teammates, and I am not the only one responsible for holding each employee accountable. The entire team is.

Tribal Leadership and becoming a stage 5 team:

In the book, Phil discusses the concept of “tribal leadership” and the 5 stages that every team must achieve to eventually reach their potential. After reading it, I made stage 5 as my team’s vision statement (our end result). Below is my team’s vision statement:
We are dedicated to team pride and the overriding conviction that “we are great, not they are great, or I am great.” This team requires common beliefs and shared visions, and the bigger the challenge, the more powerful the team. Our long-term vision is to achieve a rare stage characterized in teams with a sense of innocent wonder and the strong belief that “we no longer are just great, BUT life is great.”

How has this book impacted me?

Phil made me realize that individuals can have all the talent in the world, but they will never achieve the level of success a fully cohesive team can accomplish. As a leader, your responsibility is to get a group of individuals to act as a team and believe in one common goal. If you can do that, your team will achieve success.
This was one of the first books I read when I became a sales leader, and to this day I incorporate the principles mentioned above into my day to day leadership (I only discussed 3 out of the 11 principles because they resonated with me most). I still have a lot to learn, but thanks to Phil I have the foundation of my leadership philosophy.

Now Wake up! It’s Day One. Buy Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success here

Wake Up! It’s Book Review Monday – HARD Goals

Posted on by wakeupitsdayone in Book Review Monday, Book Reviews, Uncategorized

Outside of my mentors and defining moments, books have accelerated my learning both professionally and personally, and I truly believe that reading is the single most important thing you can do to better yourself.  In light of this, on Monday’s I will be reviewing a book that has impacted me.

Today’s book is Hard Goals: The Secret to Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be by Mark Murphy. This book will teach you an entirely new way to set goals, and when you do it will change your life.  

Brief Summary:

Mark Murphy is founder and CEO of Leadership IQ, which is a leadership consulting company. Mark and his team studied 5,000 workers from all different type of industries to understand what makes people and businesses extraordinary. He also shares stories from people like Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, and many of our past presidents to discover what made them achieve things most dream of doing. What he learned was that they didn’t set easy or “SMART” goals, they set HARD goals. In his book, Mark walks us through what HARD goals are and how we can achieve them. 

Things I learned from the book:

  • You must be emotionally connected to your goal, able to see and feel as if this goal is necessary to your survival and when accomplished it is the hardest thing you have ever done in your life.
  • Forget about SMART goals, and focusing on tactical and analytical goal setting. The most important part of the goal-setting process is asking yourself questions like this: “WHY do I care to accomplish this goal,” What happens if I don’t accomplish it? How is this goal going to help me reach my potential?
  • The specific part of “SMART” goals is OK, but all you do to make it specific is focus on making the goal a number. Instead, why don’t you visualize the goal, and draw it out to make it specific? If you can draw the goal being accomplished, then your mind will be more invested in completing it.

Other things I learned:

You can set and achieve HARD goals because YOU HAVE DONE IT MANY TIMES BEFORE

We have all accomplished things we never thought possible. When we do, we all have the same feeling that makes us feel on top of the world. Unfortunately, as incredible as that feeling is we as humans tend to lose it so quickly. For most, they just completely forget, and it prohibits them from remembering how they achieved things once thought impossible. So, right now at this moment think back to the last time you did set a goal and achieved it. Now ask yourself these questions?

  • Did this goal challenge me and push me out of my comfort zone?
  • DId I have a deep emotional attachment to the goal?
  • Did I have to learn new skills to accomplish it?
  • Was my personal investment in this goal such that it felt entirely necessary?
  • Could I vividly picture what it would be like to hit my goal?

What are HARD goals and How do you set HARD goals?

Heartfelt

As mentioned above, the best question to ask yourself is “Why do I care about this goal.” This is a straightforward and easy question, but yet very powerful. And to further develop a heartfelt connection Mark explains you must focus on intrinsic, personal, extrinsic connections to your goal:

    • Develop goals around things that interest you, and you have expressed passion towards
    • Who are you accomplishing this goal for? It is OK if it is not just for you but for someone else
    • Ask yourself what the payoff is?

Also, Mark discusses the idea of discovering your “Shoves and Tugs” which are moments/things that pull you away from your goal or push you towards your goal. Once you identify what these “things” are you can be more aware of them and set goals that are tailored to the tugs more than the shoves. To help, ask yourself questions like this to help yourself identify shoves and tugs:

    • Describe a time when you felt really frustrated and wanted to give up?
    • Describe a time recently when you felt really motivated, and you were totally fired up?

Animated

This is a simple task that I think most people know how to do, but don’t actually do it. A great way to think about is to ask yourself “How do I think this goal looks and feels? Literally, Draw it out. (Shape, Colors, Lighting, Distinct parts, Emotions, Movement)

Required

Most of us set goals annually and never achieve them (80% of us to be exact). Why? We want the reward immediately rather than putting in the long-term work. When it comes to goals like losing weight, saving money, and trying to improve yourself, it is easier to just eat that cake, spend that money, or not pick up that self-help book in the moment. You say, ‘well I have time. I can start tomorrow, or next week’. You have no thought of the future implications. So, how can you try to turn the goal into being a requirement and ensuring it gets accomplished?

  1. Ask yourself this: If you don’t accomplish this goal, what happens? If the implication is something you can deal with, then I bet you will not be invested enough to follow through on accomplishing the goal.
  2. Spread out the costs and rewards over the present and future: Instead of taking on the brunt of the work now, and rewarding yourself right now. You can spread it out and have small wins to avoid burnout and gain confidence.
  3. Limit your choices: If you are trying to lose weight don’t go to a restaurant that has healthy and crap food. Just, change the habit not the reward to get you thinking about breaking your goal.
  4. Focus on each day, or as I like to put it say to yourself “every day is day one.” Just focus on accomplishing today.
  5. When writing down your goals or visualizing your goals make sure you tell others you want to “lose weight” say “6 months from now I will be wearing an X size” OR say “I will be wearing those pants that I have not worn since I was young”s

Difficult

To create a difficult goal you ask yourself  questions like this:

  • How is this goal going to stretch me?
  • What will you have to learn to achieve this goal?
  • How will you have grown and what skills will you have acquired?

How has this book impacted me?

The first time I read this book I thought it was dumb, no joke. I was all for the “SMART” goal idea, but I quickly realized how I and so many others fail to actually accomplish their goals. I re-read this book about 3 years ago and went into it wanting to find a better way to set and achieve goals. Well, over the past 3 years I went from saying I was going to achieve goals to ACTUALLY achieving goals. I go through an annual goal setting process for myself personally, and I use these steps above to help me do that.

In 2017, I set 6 goals for myself: Read 25 books, reconnect with 6 people from my past, write 5 recommendations for others who I have worked with, save and invest X amount of money, build out a framework for a blog, and write a “thank you” letter to my high school teacher. I can tell you that I read 28 books, reconnected with 10 people, wrote 9 recommendations, didn’t just start my blog, but published 10 posts in 2017, and reconnected with my old teacher. My goals were crushed in 2017, and I have no doubt if I follow this process of setting HARD goals I will do it again and again.

Now, Wake Up! It’s Day One. Time to set your HARD goals for 2018 and beyond. You can start by purchasing the book here: Hard Goals: The Secret to Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be and check out www.leadershipiq.com for more information on Mark and his company.