by Helena Escalante | Goals, Growth, Mindset, Opportunity, Planning, Productivity, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 51 seconds
TODAY’S IDEA: Four Stages of Achieving a Goal
— From The 12 Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months by Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington
“The best visions are big ones,” say Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington in their wonderful book The 12 Week Year. And they go on to say, “All of the great accomplishments of mankind from medicine to technology to space travel to the World Wide Web were first envisioned and then created” via the four stages of achieving a goal.
At this point, you’re probably wondering what are those four stages are…
Impossible. Possible. Probable. Given.
Every single big goal goes through these four stages of accomplishment.
When we dream big, sometimes feels very uncomfortable, as we don’t know how on Earth we will be able to achieve such a thing. That is the impossible stage. Asking How? at this stage is the wrong question because it’s too early in the process.
“The fact that you don’t know how to do it creates the perception that it is impossible, at least for you…” But if you think it’s impossible you will get stuck on that thought. Thus, the authors advise not asking How? and, instead, changing the question to What if?
“By asking What if?, you give yourself permission to entertain the possibility and begin to connect with the benefits… [Thus] you begin to shift from impossible to possible thinking.”
So, ask What if? at this initial stage, and imagine the possibilities: “What would be different for you, your family, your friends, your team, your clients and your community?” It’s a very powerful question!
Once you start seeing and believing that your goal is indeed possible, “Then you begin the shift from possible to the next level: probable. You make this shift by asking the question we avoided earlier: How might I? How is not a bad question; in fact, it’s a perfectly good question, but the timing is critical. Ask it too early and it shuts down the whole process, but once you see your vision as possible, the question of how is an essential one.”
The last stage to fulfill a vision or a goal is moving from probable to given. “This shift happens naturally as you begin to implement the planned actions. Given is a powerful state of mind where any question of doubt is gone and, mentally, you are already standing in the end results. As you see the results start to materialize, your thinking shifts almost automatically to given.”
And there you have the four stages of achieving a goal. I’m sure if you think back to something that is a given in your life now and trace it back to its original thought you can see how you went through these four stages. Keep that in mind the next time you think something is impossible, because nothing is.
Cheers to you accomplishing your goals!
ACTION
TODAY: Dream big! Set a goal for yourself that seems impossible. The authors’ challenge is to “dream big and imagine true greatness for yourself. Your vision should be big enough that is makes you feel at least a little bit uncomfortable. […] All of your big personal accomplishments must also be preceded by big visions.”
FUTURE: When envisioning your future, set big, hairy audacious goals and then go through the four stages to turn them from impossible to given.
Know someone who might be interested in this post? Please share via email, Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Planning, Productivity, Time, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 5 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Include this One Key Element for Success When Planning Your Day
— From The Perfect Day Formula: How to Own the Day And Control Your Life by Craig Ballantyne
“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail,” is a quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin, a master of productivity. A modern-day master of productivity is fitness and personal development guru Craig Ballantyne, who teaches us how to plan our days in his book The Perfect Day Formula.
Ballantyne says, “The average person lives a reactive life. They get up. They fight to make it to work on time. That’s the extent of their planning. They haven’t looked any further ahead. They figure that when they get to work, then they’ll figure out something to do, or worse, a way to simply get through the day.”
“A lack of preparation handicaps us in all areas of life,” points out Ballantyne. And he goes on to say that, besides a schedule, the one key element for success when planning your day is a script.
Without scripting your day, the author states, “it’s impossible for you to be as effective, efficient and productive as you can be.”
A script is a simple tool but it’s incredibly effective. It works in tandem with our schedule, and it requires us to set start and end times for all tasks, phone calls, and meetings. “This avoids time vampires from sucking your schedule dry,” says Ballantyne.
More importantly, the script works wonders with Reverse Goal Setting. This is when you set a goal and work backward, breaking down the steps to achieve it into doable daily tasks. Then you can script and schedule them in your calendar to get them done. In other words, Reverse Goal Setting is when “You start at the finish line and run your race in reverse.”
“For many people, the finish line is about family. You want to be home for dinner. […] Start by setting a deadline for your workday. If you want to be home by 5:30 p.m. and your commute will take thirty minutes, then that means you must leave the office at 5 p.m. To leave the office at 5 p.m., you’ll need to stop working on big tasks at 4:30 p.m. so that you can tidy up, prepare for the next morning… and dash off any last emails or notes to colleagues about important projects or meetings for the next day.
You must prepare for your mornings so that you start the day organized, and are able to attack the number one priority in your life first thing in the morning. Your daily script is easy to follow when you build it around your number one priority and you have your NOT-to-do list in place to keep you out of temptation. […]
Your least important tasks should be scripted for the time of day when you have the least mental energy.”
“Your script is vital to your success,” Ballantyne emphasizes. “You must plan your days so that you know what you will get done.” (More on lists here.)
Now that you know about the script, I hope you will see why I think—and agree with Ballantyne—that it’s an awesome tool for success when planning your day.
Happy planning!
ACTION
TODAY: At the end of your day today, create your script for tomorrow. Planning your day ahead of time will give you a leg up. Try it out and let me know how it goes!
FUTURE: Apply the reverse goal setting method for your goals and once you have them broken down into daily tasks, script and schedule them for your success. Remember to keep them and treat them as you would any other appointment!
Know someone who would like the idea of scripting their day? Please share this post with them via email, Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Collaboration, Creativity, Mindset, Opportunity, Planning, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 10 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Ideas to Create Your Own Virtual Water-Cooler Moments
— From Build Your Dream Network: Forging Powerful Relationships in a Hyper-Connected World by J. Kelly Hoey.
Networking guru J. Kelly Hoey is a specialist in forging strong bonds whether in person or virtual, for mutual benefit. After all, that is the essence of her book Build Your Dream Network, where she details the wonderful benefits and experiences that having a strong and nurtured network can provide.
One of the ways to make this happen is to create serendipitous encounters. Hoey points to Tina Roth Eisenhower, the famous Swiss-Miss blogger and entrepreneur as a master at that. She created a coworking space called Friends Work Here and designed it in such a way that it leads to water-cooler* moments: “circumstances where conversations can lead to magical results.” And some of this magic has led Eisenhower to launch several of her businesses, so there are indeed tangible results to serendipity in your own network if you decide to take action.
But what if you don’t have a proverbial water cooler around which to gather? Hoey says, “Social networking platforms are where you seek those relationship building, water-cooler moments. Water-cooler moments can happen on Slack or during a Twitter chat or from upvoting a product a Product Hunt.”
Hoey suggests aiming to “create multiple touch points when creating your own water-cooler moments.” And she gives us a menu of ideas to consider:
- If the person is an influencer, follow their posts on LinkedIn
- Sign up for their newsletter
- Write an Amazon review for their book
- Read and comment on their blog posts
- Subscribe to and spread the word about their podcasts—and rate their podcasts on iTunes
- Share their content, whether by forwarding the insights to your friends via e-mail (or Facebook updates) or a post on LinkedIn or even simply a tweet or retweet.
- Remember to use their #hashtag
- Participate in a Twitter party they’re hosting (or Q&A session hosted on the platform)
- Engage in their event(s) or meetups via Periscope or watch the livestream (many TEDx events do this)—and while you’re virtually participating in the event share your insights on another platform (such as Twitter)
Also, how can you create water-cooler moments if you travel a lot?
Hoey points to Andrew Grill, Futurist Keynote Speaker and former IBM Global Managing Partner, who “creates not-entirely-left-to-chance interactions every time he travels—he refers to it as #SocialSerendipity. [Grill] makes it a point of mentioning where he is going, when he’s arrived, and where he’s staying (as well as looking for these cues from others in his global network).”
I’ve followed entrepreneur and author Peter Shankman for years, and he used to do a similar thing: he’d tell his network where he was traveling to and where he’d be at a certain time, say the lobby of the hotel he was staying at, and invite anyone to come have coffee and chat with him during that time. Brilliant!
So there you have it. Now go put these ideas into action and let the magic of serendipity stem out of these water-cooler moments.
ACTION
TODAY: Take action on one of the ideas above to create a water-cooler moment.
FUTURE: Figure out which of the ideas above work best for you (or come up with some that do) and make it a habit of creating the conditions for serendipity to take place.
Know someone who would like to create some water-cooler moments? Please share this post with them via email, Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, thank you!
* For our international gurupies who may not be familiar with the meaning of the “water cooler” idiom, it means the socializing. It comes from the conversation that usually goes on when people take a break from their work and walk over to the water cooler: they run into other people taking a break there, conversation ensues, and you never know what great things and projects will come out of it.
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Collaboration, Goals, Habits, Mindset, Miniseries, Planning, Productivity, Resources, Time, Tools
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 32 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: The Email Charter
— From The Email Charter by Chris Anderson and Jane Wulf
In my quest to figure out a better way to deal with email overload, I came across another person who receives an enormous amount of email: Chris Anderson. He is the Curator and head of TED Talks. And, just as Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg set their own email rules, Anderson and TED’s Scribe Jane Wulf came up with their own rules as well, which they aptly named the Email Charter.
The problem, as Anderson and Wulf see it, is this:
“The relentless growth of in-box overload is being driven by a surprising fact: The average time taken to respond to an email is greater, in aggregate, than the time it took to create.”
Not only that, they emphatically add, “We’re drowning in email. And the many hours we spend on it are generating ever more work for our friends and colleagues. […] Email overload is something we are inadvertently doing to each other… You can’t solve this problem acting alone. You will end up simply ignoring, delaying, or rushing responses to many incoming messages, and risk annoying people or missing something great. That prospect is stressful.”
Fortunately, there is a solution, but we all have to be in on it: “We can reverse this spiral only by mutual agreement.” And they go on to explain: “If we can mutually change the ground rules, maybe we can make that stress go away. That’s why it’s time for an Email Charter. Its core purpose is to reverse the underlying cause of the problem — the fact that email takes more time to respond to than it took to generate. Each of its rules contributes to that goal. If they are adopted, the problem will gradually ease.”
“But,” they note, “Nothing will happen unless the Charter is widely shared and adopted.” This is a relatively easy solution: “The mechanism to achieve that will be email itself. If people who like the Charter add it to their email signatures, word will spread.”
Let’s help make that happen! I’m in, are you?
1. Respect Recipients’ Time. This is the fundamental rule. As the message sender, the onus is on YOU to minimize the time your email will take to process. Even if it means taking more time at your end before sending.
2. Short or Slow is not Rude. Let’s mutually agree to cut each other some slack. Given the email load we’re all facing, it’s OK if replies take a while coming and if they don’t give detailed responses to all your questions. No one wants to come over as brusque, so please don’t take it personally. We just want our lives back!
3. Celebrate Clarity. Start with a subject line that clearly labels the topic, and maybe includes a status category [Info], [Action], [Time Sens] [Low Priority]. Use crisp, muddle-free sentences. If the email has to be longer than five sentences, make sure the first provides the basic reason for writing. Avoid strange fonts and colors.
4. Quash Open-Ended Questions. It is asking a lot to send someone an email with four long paragraphs of turgid text followed by “Thoughts?”. Even well-intended-but-open questions like “How can I help?” may not be that helpful. Email generosity requires simplifying, easy-to-answer questions. “Can I help best by a) calling b) visiting or c) staying right out of it?!”
5. Slash Surplus cc’s. Cc’s are like mating bunnies. For every recipient you add, you are dramatically multiplying total response time. Not to be done lightly! When there are multiple recipients, please don’t default to ‘Reply All’. Maybe you only need to cc a couple of people on the original thread. Or none.
6. Tighten the Thread. Some emails depend for their meaning on context. Which means it’s usually right to include the thread being responded to. But it’s rare that a thread should extend to more than 3 emails. Before sending, cut what’s not relevant. Or consider making a phone call instead.
7. Attack Attachments. Don’t use graphics files as logos or signatures that appear as attachments. Time is wasted trying to see if there’s something to open. Even worse is sending text as an attachment when it could have been included in the body of the email.
8. Give these Gifts: EOM NNTR. If your email message can be expressed in half a dozen words, just put it in the subject line, followed by EOM (= End of Message). This saves the recipient having to actually open the message. Ending a note with “No need to respond” or NNTR, is a wonderful act of generosity. Many acronyms confuse as much as help, but these two are golden and deserve wide adoption.
9. Cut Contentless Responses. You don’t need to reply to every email, especially not those that are themselves clear responses. An email saying “Thanks for your note. I’m in.” does not need you to reply “Great.” That just cost someone another 30 seconds.
10. Disconnect! If we all agreed to spend less time doing email, we’d all get less email! Consider calendaring half-days at work where you can’t go online. Or a commitment to email-free weekends. Or an ‘auto-response’ that references this charter. And don’t forget to smell the roses.
ACTION
TODAY: Anderson and Wulf invite us all to share the Charter via our social media, blogging, and adding it to our email signature. Take a moment and do so today.
FUTURE: Use the rules in the Charter and share it with as many people as possible.
Know someone who would like this post about The Email Charter? Please share it with them via email, Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Creativity, Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Planning, Time, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 51 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Questions to ask when creating new habits
— From Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits–to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life by Gretchen Rubin
I’ve been immersed in reading books about productivity and habit-formation lately: the end of the year always prompts me to do that. In my reading, I came across Gretchen Rubin’s list of questions to ask when creating new habits: this is a list she came up with in her book Better Than Before to tailor new habits to our own nature and, by knowing ourselves, to make sure we give our new habits a chance to stick better.
Whether you are the kind of person who likes to build a new habit gradually—one tiny step at a time—or the kind who thrives on making major changes at once because this motivates you better, Rubin says that sometimes one single question can give us a fresh perspective on ourselves.
She wrote the following list to help us find the best way to create a new habit that will work for us according to how we spend our time, the things we value and our current habits. Hope this gives you clarity and helps you discern a few patterns so that your new habits can not only stick, but also flourish in your favor.
Here’s the list of questions:
How I Like to Spend My Time
- At what time of day do I feel energized? When do I drag?
- Do I like racing from one activity to another, or do I prefer unhurried transitions?
- What activities take up my time but aren’t particularly useful or stimulating?
- Would I like to spend more time with friends, or by myself?
- Do I have several things on my calendar that I anticipate with pleasure?
- What can I do for hours without feeling bored?
- What daily or weekly activity did I do for fun when I was ten years old?
What I Value
- What’s most satisfying to me: saving time, or money, or effort?
- Does it bother me to act differently from other people, or do I get a charge out of it?
- Do I spend a lot of time on something that’s important to someone else but not to me?
- If I had $500 that I had to spend on fun, how would I spend it?
- Do I like to listen to experts, or do I prefer to figure things out for myself?
- Does spending money on an activity make me feel more committed to it, or less committed?
- Would I be happy to see my children have the life I’ve had?
My Current Habits
- Am I more likely to indulge in a bad habit in a group, or when I’m alone?
- If I could magically, effortlessly change one habit in my life, what would it be?
- If the people around me could change one of my habits, what would they choose?
- Of my existing habits, which would I like to see my children adopt? Or not?
Happy thinking about your new habit creation!
ACTION
TODAY: Give the list some thought today. Set up a time in your calendar to sit down, say, over the weekend, and answer all questions.
FUTURE: Keep coming back to this list of questions every year or every time you want to create a new habit. By understanding our nature, we’ll give ourselves a better chance to create successful habits.
Know someone who is trying to create and establish a new habit? Please share with them this list of questions via email, Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Collaboration, Growth, Leadership, Mindset, Planning
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 37 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Your Leadership Potential is Tied to Others
— From Equipping 101: What Every Leader Needs to Know by John C. Maxwell
I’m sure you’re familiar with Jim Rohn’s quote, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” Thus, your leadership potential is tied to other leaders that surround you: not outside or industry leaders and peers, but internal ones—in your business or organization—with whom you spend the most time with.
In Equipping 101, leadership guru John C. Maxwell says, “The greatest leadership principle that I have learned in over thirty years of leadership is that those closest to the leader will determine the success level of that leader.” And he points out that the negative reading of this assertion is true as well: “Those closest to the leader will determine the level of failure for that leader.” In other words, the people with whom you surround yourself make or break you.
“Most leaders have followers around them. They believe the key to leadership is gaining more followers. Few leaders surround themselves with other leaders, but the ones who do bring great value to their organizations. And not only is their burden lightened, but their vision is carried on and enlarged.”
Maxwell goes on to say, “Often, leaders wrongly believe that they must compete with the people closest to them instead of working with them [… but if] you really want to be a successful leader, you must develop and equip other leaders around you.”
Peter Drucker, management guru, famously said, “No executive has ever suffered because his people were strong and effective.” And Maxwell points out that surrounding yourself with other leaders and growing and equipping them to lead helps lift the load in two important ways:
First, other leaders become a sounding board. “Followers tell you what you want to hear. Leaders tell you what you need to hear… An opinion before a decision has potential value. An opinion after the decision has been made is worthless.”
Second, other leaders possess a leadership mind-set. “Fellow leaders do more than work with the leader, they think like the leader… This becomes invaluable in areas such as decision-making, brainstorming, and providing security and direction to others… They can carry on effectively [while the leader is away].”
Finally, to illustrate the points above, Maxwell shares a conversation with his father: he served as the president of a college for 16 years, and told the author that the most expensive workers on campus were not the highest paid but the people who were nonproductive. While leaders indeed were paid more, they were true assets because they were more productive, attracted a higher quality of persons, and added value. Maxwell’s father finished the conversation by saying, “Most people produce only when they feel like it. Leaders produce even when they don’t feel like it.”
ACTION
TODAY: Take a moment to think: Who are the closest people to you in your organization? Are you making the most out of your leadership potential and theirs?
FUTURE: Make sure that you are attracting the right people to your team and equipping them with the ability to lead.
Know someone who would like this post? Please share it via email, Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, thank you!