The Perils of Setting Goals

In a recent NYT article, Experts’ Advice to the Goal-Oriented: Don’t Overdo It, the author, Alina Tugend, highlights the dangers of casually setting goals without examining yourself, the process, and the goal itself.  Some goals are too overly focused, she says, and leave out important elements.  Some goals are overwhelming, and require all your effort, leaving no room for the other things you want in your life.  And some goals are too preposterous and lead easily to cheating.

That's why goal setting all by yourself can be a dangerous thing -- it's easy to lose perspective.  In my recent Make it Happen Now! class, each participant arrived on the scene with a goal in mind.  We worked together -- sometimes as a whole class, and sometimes just in pairs -- to make sure everyone's goal was viable.  That it was reasonable.  That it was only one goal (and not multiple ones).  And then we worked together to come up with actionable steps each participant could take to move that goal forward.

One participant said, "I couldn't think of a better way to start the new year than taking [this] class and getting my goals crystallized through [Kate's] methodical and proven process."  And that's what it's all about -- put your goals through a process.  Examine not only what you get when you reach a goal, but also what you get if you don't reach it.  Look at what you give up if you reach your goal.  It's counter intuitive, but doing this kind of work means you won't be blindsided by these surprises down the road.

There's still a chance to take Make it Happen Now! this year on Sunday, January 27th.  Find more information and register here.

some interesting research on goals

I saw a compelling article the other day about goal setting that I thought I would share with you. It's from a website called Leadership IQ that has great work- and management-related posts and webinars on a regular basis. But this one caught my eye.

Leadership IQ asked around 5,000 people about their goals, focusing on the differences between how men and women approach their goals.

Here are four of the study’s key findings:

Gender Study Finding #1: Women care about their goals more than men: Because women are more emotionally connected to their goals than men, they’re more likely to stick to their goals when the going gets tough.

Gender Study Finding #2: Men visualize their goals better than women: Like the visualization used by elite athletes, men more clearly picture their goals than women. This gives them greater direction and focus.

Gender Study Finding #3: Women are more likely to procrastinate than men: Women feel less urgency to achieve their goals than men. This results in procrastination, and potentially, goal failure.

Gender Study Finding #4: Women set tougher goals than men: Women are more likely to leave their comfort zones and set challenging (and even scary) goals. This leads to both greater achievement and fulfillment.

Interested in more? Read the rest of the article here.

Tools for the new year

Now is as good a time as any to start preparing for next year.  To help you do that, I've organized a number of tools that I think you may find useful in pursuing what you want next year.

1.  Me
Lest we forget that I am more than just a blogger, I will remind you that I coach, I teach, and I help get people unstuck from wherever they're stuck.  I charge $75 a session (which, in this world, is a STEAL) and I've got a lot of happy clients, with always room for one more...

2.  Make it Happen Now! Workshop, January 12th and 27th
This is a course I offer every year at the start of the year.  It helps you identify what you want, figure out what stands in your way, make a plan to go after what you want, and develop accountability to make sure you stick with your plan.  It's $75 for four hours and past participants have repeated the course year after year.  Find out more about it here.

3.  Notes from the Universe
This is a great site that will send you messages every weekday morning to remind you how wonderful you are and how you fit into the bigger picture of the universe around you.  I use them as a springboard for my meditation and to reconnect me with my heart.  Here's a sample message:

The one thing all famous authors, world-class athletes, business tycoons,singers, actors, and celebrated achievers in any field have in common, Kate,is that they all began their journeys when they were none of these things.Yet still, they began their journeys.You are so poised for greatness,The Universe
One day, they're going to name something big after you, Kate!Like a statue, a college... or a hurricane.

You can sign up for them at here.

4.  Robert Holden's Shift Happens

I've learned a lot from Robert Holden and find him to be one of the warmest, sweetest, and friendliest thinkers out there.  I've signed up for his mailing list and, like the Universe, every weekday morning I get a motivating message from him.  For example:

Today is a good day for forgiveness. Mind you, forgiveness is not for everyone. It is only for those who would like to experience peace, love, joy, bliss, healing, freedom, total salvation and things like that.

You can sign up here , where you'll find lots of other great tools from Robert, too.

5.  Coach Alba

This is a tool from the people at Change Anything that can help you stay on track by receiving texts to help you get through what they call "Crucial Moments."  I imagine I might use it at night when I have a tendency to eat mindlessly -- just a quick text from Coach Alba to remind me to be mindful, and all of a sudden I'm brought back to myself.  At the moment, it's programmed to best work with people who want to lose weight, though I imagine they'll come up with other iterations of it.

You can find it here.

6.  StickK

This is a site I wrote about earlier that provides you with external motivation when your internal motivation starts to lag.  Essentially what you do is sign up for a challenge -- losing weight, getting a new job, working on your memoir, writing a new song, whatever -- and then wager with stickK that you will commit to taking action on that goal, or you'll have to pay money, either to a friend, a charity, or an "anti-charity" (a cause you hate).  I've used this technique with clients before with really great results, but you can try it for yourself online here.

7.  Avoiding Destination Addiction

Just watch this video:

8.  My Previous Posts on Goal Setting

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part III (part two)

Part IV

Part V

Part VI

Part VII

thinking of next year's goal... now

As we reach the end of the year, it's easy to get torn between two extremes:  at one end are the parties, the wine, the food, the time off, the butternut squash lasagna, the flaky-cakey-whatever-that-was-last-night-at-the-company-party.  At the other?  The goals we set on January first about how draconian and austere we're going to be in 2013, probably to remedy all the things we've wonked up during the holiday season. 
There has to be a better way, right? 

The key to staying focused on the long-term picture without feeling denied during such a festive time of year is all about moderation. 

Now I am not the poster child for moderation.  When something feels good, I'm like my friend's dog who, when let off the leash, will undoubtedly be found near the garbage -- not eating it, but just happily rolling around in it.  Wallowing, if you will.  It's easy to feel like the cheer that is spread at this time of year isn't going to last.  That there will never be another party, or that you just have to see one more group of people or you won't be invited back next year.  Strange:  the abundance of cheer can make us fear its lack. 
I'm not suggesting that you stay home and miserable during the holidays.  In fact, I'm not even suggesting you refrain from eating that flaky-cakey-whatever-that-was-last-night-at-the-company-party (because, damn! that was tasty!).  But do you need that AND a sugar cookie?  Do you need two glasses of wine AND a martini?  Do you need to stay out until 2am Tuesday AND Wednesday?

If the answer is yes, then by all means, do it.  But wherever and whenever the answer is no, take a moment to remember what you really want from your life.  Remember to take care of yourself.  And remember that the difference between this week and the first week of the year is just an arbitrary distinction you're making. 

If you want that goal, why not start now?

Dan Pink’s Drive

If you haven’t seen this video before, take 11 minutes and watch it now. Seriously. I’ll wait.


So I just finished a two day training on these concepts and, while it’s meant to address employees’ engagement and motivation, I think it holds true for our personal lives and the drive we have to live fully.

Think about it: what’s something that you do because you absolutely love doing it? Odds are there are three big contributors to what makes that fun and wonderful for you: Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose.

Let’s take one of my favorite things to do – hiking. Part of the reason I love it is because I have autonomy over it – I can do it whenever I want (more or less) and there’s nobody breathing down my neck telling me how exactly to do it. Another part of the reason I love it is because I can get better at it. I can hike longer, higher, farther. I can get more present while I hike and get “in the zone” with it. And I see progress as I go along – the views at the top of a mountain, for example, make me feel like I have mastered something (even if it’s just my legs). And thirdly, hiking contributes to my sense of purpose – living more fully. It takes care of my body and mind (so I can help others take care of theirs). It connects me to myself and to whatever friends I hike with. It gets me out of self-doubt, and it’s fun.

Now think about something you don’t love to do. If you’re like me, it’s something like doing the dishes. You can use these same concepts to help yourself motivate through tasks you need to do but aren’t particularly jazzed about.

Dish-doing autonomy: I can decide when I want to do the dishes, what kind of soap to use, how hot the water is, and how long I let them pile up before doing them. This is way better than having a roommate pestering me about the stack of baked-on-caked-on-greasy-dirt-encrusted cookware.

Dish-doing mastery: In truth, I don’t care about getting better at doing dishes, but I do care that they’re done well. So I can focus my energy on making sure they’re socially acceptable. I can also use the time it takes to do dishes to get better at something else – maybe by listening to a podcast or news report, or by focusing my mind on the task at hand.

Dish-doing purpose: If I tie doing my dishes back to purpose, they become much easier to do. I do my dishes so I can take care of myself so I can help take care of others. Then dish-doing becomes a gift I give myself instead of a punishment I inflict on myself. I do my dishes so I can be a responsible adult. I do my dishes so my home reflects the way I feel about myself. Think about it like explaining why you do the dishes to a young person. This can help the young person in you connect more fully to the task at hand.

More neat insights to come, but I wanted to introduce you to Dan Pink and these concepts before, say, another month accidentally passes without me writing anything…

shifting paradigms

I’m not a professional runner, so I won’t pretend to be one. But I’m going to tell you a story about one that, admittedly, comes second hand, so if you are a runner and I get the details wrong, please try to see the forest for the trees.

Back in the day (i.e., the 80’s) there was a guy named Cliff Young. He was a farmer in Australia and had a big farm with lots of sheep. To keep everything on the farm running smoothly, he ran from one part of the farm to another, running, running, running every day.

His friends noticed that he ran so much, they suggested to him that he run in a road race – the most grueling one they could think of, that spanned 543.7miles (875-kilometers) from Sydney to Melbourne. The race is a beast, the kind of race that usually takes fit, young athletes at the top of their form five days to complete.

Did I mention that Cliff was 61? Well, he was.

So Cliff showed up at the race in his farmer clothes – overalls and work boots – while everyone else was there in their Nikes and spandex and what have you. (Remember, it’s the 80’s.) People thought he was a joke. They thought he was there for entertainment, and not to run the race. But when the gun went off, off went Cliff, too.

The thing is, people also thought that the best way to get through this race was to run 18 hours and sleep 6. Run 18, sleep 6. Run 18, sleep 6. For five days. (Trust me, I’m exhausted just typing this.) Cliff, however, didn’t know what he was supposed to do, so he didn’t follow that paradigm. He ran 22 hours, and slept 2. Run 22, sleep 2. Run 22, sleep 2. And get there before anyone else does.

This is but one example of why “the way it’s always been done” doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best way to do it. If Cliff had known what he was “supposed” to do before joining the race, he probably wouldn’t have won. And he probably would have shown up in Nikes and fancy 80’s spandex like everyone else and run differently than he did (apparently he had something of a shuffle) and possibly even have hurt himself.

So the moral of the story is twofold: just because everyone else thinks you can’t do something doesn’t mean you can’t, and second, just because that’s the way everyone else does it doesn’t mean it’s the only way to do it.

And you know what? The next year everyone ran 22, slept 2.

The Marathon Project

So, it's fall in NYC, and there are boatloads of runners out there training for the marathon. They're fit, athletic, don't bounce in a lot of the same places I bounce, and in general, they look like they enjoy sweating. Part of me envies them. The other part is exhausted just thinking about it.

But they've inspired me, and in an effort to be even remotely like them, I've decided to prep for a marathon, too. Except mine doesn't involve running (or really, sweating in any way). Instead, it's a coaching marathon. So like those runners, I have a goal -- I am offering 26.2 hours of pro bono life coaching before November 6th. But unlike those runners, I don't have to get up off the couch. (Phew!)

That said, I'm looking for someone running the marathon for charity who wants to partner with me. Because instead of paying me for these 26.2 hours of coaching, my “marathon clients” will donate to the charity of a runner partner. (That's right, I have a conscience!)

All I ask for in exchange is that my runner help me publicize my coaching marathon.

Benefits to the runner include:

1. Free money! Whoever I find to coach on my own will be a donation to the runner's charity that the runner doesn't have to work for.

2. A bonus to prospective donors! The runner can offer my services as a benefit of donating, or as an enticement to donate.

3. Free publicity! Working together spreads the word, both about the coaching and the charity.

4. Free life coaching! The runner could be one of the 26.2 hours of coaching and can get help with something in his/her life (that isn’t necessarily the marathon -- though as November 6th gets closer, what else is there, really?).

5. Free PR! I know someone at the NYRR, so there’s a chance the story could get picked up.

While my runner is pounding the pavement, I will be helping people get unstuck and find new ways to make the most out of their lives. Not too shabby, eh?

My ideal partner in this project is someone who would make the most of working together – helping me to spread the word and introducing me to people who are interested in or curious about coaching.

Is that runner you? Is it your brother/sister/mother/cousin/milkman/coworker/dogwalker/cable guy? Because without a runner, the project can't go forward -- and if you're interested in getting some coaching for a tax-deductible donation to a good cause, you need a runner just as badly as I do.

So, if you're interested, or know someone else who might be, please contact me right away!

carrots and sticks and bears, oh my!

I've been reading an interesting book about motivation and sticking to your commitments called Carrots and Sticks, written by a Yale professor of economics. The book proposes two different approaches to goal-reaching; being rewarded for reaching milestones along your journey, and being punished for not doing so.

(Hence, carrots and sticks.)

The interesting thing, though, is that Ian Ayres (the author) has built a website, www.stickk.com, that allows people to put up a certain amount of their own money as a bet against their failure. For example, Ayers himself has been striving to keep his weight under 180 pounds. To aid in this, he has agreed that stickk.com can take the $500 he has put at risk every week if he goes over 180. Even more compellingly, he has agreed that stickk.com can send that money to a cause he does not support.

How does the website know that he's gone over 180 pounds? Well, he tells them. Part of Ayres' commitment is his willingness to participate in the contract (and report honestly) in the first place. Because are you really going to bet $500 that you'll stop a behavior you kindasortakinda want to stop? I doubt it. Stickk.com encourages users to identify an external arbiter to oversee these contracts -- someone like a coach, for example -- to make sure the person is reporting honestly, and really making use of the system.

Because once someone lies about one commitment, the whole thing is shot.

I find this particular type of motivation both exciting and terrifying. Putting $500 of my own money at risk would ensure that any undesired behavior would cease to happen -- especially if that money was going to, say, the NRA, the Tea Party, or Sarah Palin's campaign fund -- and yet, I don't know if I could forgive myself if an emergency happened and I couldn't stick to my commitment. Not only would I be letting myself down, I'd be out $500, and would probably have to drum up another $500 to donate to positive causes to balance out the harm I've done.

And that's what I like about using money as a motivator; it brings the issue into the front of my consciousness. There are a number of things I want to do -- like blogging regularly -- that, if I lost $500 every time I didn't do them would happen more often. At the same time, I'm not sure I'd want to live with the stress of that kind of money hanging over me.

A client of mine is using this approach -- not through the website, but through a verbal agreement with me -- and I'm amazed to see the amount of work he's doing. Will this last longer than one week? I'm not sure. But it definitely is motivating him to make absolutely sure the desired behavior happens seven days in a row.

Who knew Sarah Palin could be so useful?

what are you chasing?

I live in New York, where it seems like everybody is chasing something. And I worry that people don't really know what they're chasing, and how their thoughts and behavior are impacting their journey.

Take me, for example, back when I was acting. I was chasing The Big Dream -- except I wasn't specific about what that meant to me. I just wanted to "be an actor in New York." Well, that's actually absurdly easy. Get a headshot, go on an audition, and voila! You're an actor in New York.

So I sat down to get more specific, and I realized that my goal was "to make a living acting in New York." Then I was getting somewhere. I had a clearer destination, and could focus my energy more tightly. Except that I was missing a piece -- how I wanted to be or feel while I was pursuing that goal. Because, as it played out, while I was chasing Making a Living as an Actor in New York, I was unhappy. I was working a job that made me want to stab people in the face, I felt like I had no time for anything that wasn't theatre, I was comparing myself to other actors (and coming up short) and, in general, I just didn't like the way I felt about myself.

I was, as it turned out, chasing the wrong thing, like the dog chasing the mailman. (Unless, of course, the mailman is delivering Omaha Steaks, but in my case he wasn't.)

It wasn't until I got specific about what I saw as success that I realized I was on the wrong path.

The same thing has happened with dating. I have defined and redefined (and redefined) (oh, and redefined) what I consider desirable characteristics in a guy. The three core qualities -- funny, smart, and self-aware -- stay the same, but the fourth quality always changes. Sometimes it's kind or thoughtful, sometimes it's simply ready, but as I have more experience, I can get more specific about what I want, and again, how I want to feel while pursuing it.

This last piece is often overlooked because we're not taught about feelings. But I think it's of the utmost importance. If you're ok with, say, pursuing a career in acting to the exclusion of everything else, that's great -- but be clear with yourself how long you're willing to do that. A month? A year? Your whole life? There are trade offs to everything, and making sure that what you're giving up is worth what you're getting is incredibly important.

The final thing I encourage people to look at surrounding success is how you will know you've made it. Often times, people get so wrapped up in the struggle of "making it" that the small successes they've had along the way no longer matter -- that big achievement is just around the corner waiting to be reached. And that's when success becomes a trap. Because as I know from first hand experience, it's easy to be more attracted to the pursuit of it than the enjoyment of it.

So to avoid the perpetual pursuit, define what it will look like when you've reached your goal. When will you finally consider yourself successful? And does that necessarily mean there is nothing left to achieve? I find that goal-setting is super-useful in this kind of work because it gives you a number of small victories to celebrate as you reach out for things that satisfy and fulfill you.

And really, is using the word "success" even useful? For so many of us (myself included) there is a sticky quality to it, one that implies comparison, scarcity, lack, and an overall "not good enough to be successful" quality. If you fall into that category (welcome!), then perhaps simply "happiness" is a better choice of words for you than "success."

To wrap up, if you haven't thought about it yet, I urge you (whether you live in New York or not) to take a minute (or hell, a year) and get really clear not just about what you want, but how you'll know when you're there.

In a nutshell:

1. Define success

2. Be willing to be flexible about that definition and change it as your circumstances change

3. Be clear about who/how you want to be as your pursue success

4. Know how it will feel when you're successful, and be open to that feeling

5. Use a different word if "success" or "successful" brings up negative feelings for you.

just what I needed to see

This was shared with me at just the moment I needed it most. So in that spirit, I'm sharing it with you.

playing the end of the game before it's over

Watch out! I'm about to use a sports analogy. (Yes, you are at the right blog.)

I've been enjoying some World Cup games recently, and last week there was a match that reminded me of, well, life.

In final moments of the Ghana vs. Uruguay game (before penalty kicks) there was a melee in the Uruguayan goal -- a shot on goal, blocked by the goalie, then a rebound shot, blocked by a defender, and then a third rebound, blocked by a Uruguayan handball, which, for those of you as unsportsly as I am, is totally illegal -- I mean, so illegal that the guy who had the handball got kicked out of the game and would not be allowed to play again in the tournament.

So, while he blocked a goal, he was mortified because he earned Ghana a free penalty kick, AND he lost his right to keep playing.

As he walked off the field, you could see how sick he felt, knowing he had just handed the game over to Ghana.

However, things didn't go so well for Ghana on that kick. The ball hit the crossbar at the top of the goal and flew out of bounds, leading the game into a shoot out, which, in the end was won by Uruguay.

The best moment captured on video, in my opinion, is of the player who was kicked out of the game (and it almost looks like he's been kicked out of the stadium) for a move that in his mind lost them the game, when, in fact, it didn't.

The plain truth is, whether in soccer or relationships or job interviews or auditions or family gatherings or asking for a raise or taking a risk, whatever the situation, you never know how it's going to end until it ends. And there's absolutely no value to beating yourself up for something you've done "wrong" because the game you're playing may be much bigger than the one you seem to be playing.

For example, this is only one game in that Uruguayan player's career. Maybe it sends him to the bottom of the soccer heap, and maybe it starts him on a road to stardom. Who knows? What we do know is that the game did not end the way he thought it would.

And the chances are good that yours won't either.

book review: The Magic LAMP by Keith Ellis

In preparing for my goal-setting class, I read a lot of books, websites, and other materials on goals. And in general, they were pretty dry and boring reads. But Keith Ellis, in his book The Magic LAMP: Goal Setting for People Who Hate Setting Goals has captured some of the magic of goals and transmits it to his readers with joy and enthusiasm.

I highly recommend it!

The LAMP in his program breaks down into:
Lock on -- What do You Want?
Act
Manage Your Progress
Persist

In many ways his advice parallels mine -- figure out what you want and make a plan to get it. Then do something (anything) that starts you in the direction of your goal. Keep your goal in sight at all times and maintain an emotional connection to it. Then just keep going.

He calls goals wishes, because, in effect, that's what they are. "Wishing" has a whimsical, heart-felt-ness to it that boring old "goal-setting" just lacks. And, tempted as I am, I won't steal it. (Though it's such a great idea I really, really want to!)

He makes a number of great points, some of which are:

• Everyone knows how to make a plan, because we all plan for vacations. So if you say "I'm not good at setting goals because I can't stick to a plan," that's kind of crap.
• If you're not motivated enough to act on your goal, then you don't care enough about attaining it to act. And if you don't care enough, then why pursue it in the first place? You may be unhappy, but you're just not unhappy enough to actually do anything about it.
• Self-destructive behavior is just a habit. You can change any habit in 30 days if you apply yourself to it. But you have to be willing to do the work to release the old habit.
• Life is like a self-service gas station -- you can sit in your car and honk the horn as long as you want, but that's not going to get your tank filled.
• Goal setting (or, in his book, wishing) is like gardening; you have to have faith that your efforts will get you to your goal. Nobody would plant seeds if they felt strongly that they wouldn't turn into tomatoes!
• You can never finish what you never start.

He has some great exercises, fabulous insights, and difficult questions to ask yourself. If working with my posts has not inspired you enough then you're not human! I mean, if working with my posts has not inspired you enough, then pick up this book. Hell, pick it up anyway!* You won't regret it!

*or get it at the library like I did! Thanks, NYPL!

From Resolutions to Results VIII: Get Support

Now that you've got a Simple, Measurable, Active, Realistic, Timely, and Thrilling goal with due dates assigned, you've got to get going! However, trying to do it alone can be incredibly difficult.

Finding mentors and accountability partners will increase your success rate dramatically. But who do you ask? Your mom? Your husband? Maybe, maybe not. Look at your list of roles and responsibilities from the first post: which relationships on that list would benefit most from you achieving your goal? Who in your life is already achieving your goal at the level at which you’d like to achieve it?

I really recommend accountability partnerships for achieving goals. While it’s tempting to ask those closest to you to be your accountability partners, that could be a trap. Whether we like it or not, there are rules in the relationships we’ve already established. If you’re the fat sister, using your (skinny) sister as your accountability partner for losing weight might backfire.

Instead, setting up a clearly negotiated partnership with someone you don't know quite as well could serve your goal better. With those people, you can explicitly design your relationship and your interactions. You can agree “I will email you about my successes three times a week and no more.” A friend might be confused by this, or feel used, but an accountability partner will reap the same benefits by sharing with you in a similar fashion. Take a few minutes to identify people in your life who can serve you as accountability partners, and then start asking around!

Announcing your goal to others is important, too, and has lots of benefits – it forces you to verbally clarify what it is you want, and allows your ears to hear your mouth committing to a goal. It puts your quest more on display, and can give you more positive feedback from the people around you who hear about it.

So where do you announce your goal? Anywhere! Your facebook status is a great place to start... as are the comments of this blog! (Just sayin'.)

Resolutions to Results VII: Identifying Obstacles

Identify Your Obstacles

So now that you are armed with this fabulously detailed and due-dated plan, what’s going to cock it all up? What’s going to get in your way and keep you from achieving this goal? (If your answer is “nothing,” you’re not trying hard enough.)

So, really: what stands between you and achieving your goal? Questions to ask yourself to uncover your obstacles are these:

• Why haven’t you achieved this in the past?

What other goals have you attempted and quit? Do you want to approach this one the same way? If not, what will it take from you to do things differently this time?

• What are you afraid of?

There are lots of things to be afraid of, but change isn't necessarily one of them. Are you worried that you'll have to work more, sleep less, sweat more? Are you afraid you'll have to give up your security blanket -- whatever that means to you? Be honest with yourself about what scares you so you are better equipped to face that fear instead of waiting to be sideswiped by it. And nobody's judging you on what scares you. This is between you and you, so be real.

• What will change in your life if you succeed at this goal?

This question addresses both the WIIFM (which we talked about earlier) and the OGTSC (the Oh God, That's Scary Crap*) that is likely to come up as you make change. Really look into your future and see the stuff you WANT to change -- what else is likely to change as a side-effect?

• What can I do to prepare myself for this?

Only you really know the answer for this. I know that I am challenged by feeling lonely late at night, and one of the things I do to compensate is to eat. So if my goal is to lose weight, I know I'm going to have to make a plan to handle the feelings of loneliness so that I don't throw myself off target by eating late at night. To address this, I could challenge myself to read 50 pages every night (which would be hard to do while foraging for snacks in the kitchen) or make a plan to call a different friend each weeknight to catch up. Your preparation will be different, but you'll know what to do!

• Who doesn’t want you to change?

What are some of the “silent agreements” you have with people – those unspoken social contracts we make and get stuck to like library paste (the not-tasty kind). Are you the obedient daughter? The athletic son? The quiet roommate? The responsible husband? If you think you have no silent contracts, go back and look at your Roles and Responsibilities exercise. Which job do you have that interacts with another person? And would that person be happy if you were to change some of the responsibilities you had in that job? (I'm just sayin'...)

Tips for Handling Obstacles!
"Every successful man I have heard of has done the best he could with conditions as he found them, and not waited until the next year for better." – Edgar Watson Howe, publisher

Keep Anticipating Obstacles. Today you’re predicting what you think will get in the way, but as you make new progress, unforeseen obstacles can crop up. As you see them, write them down. Often just being aware of what’s in your way can help you to find creative ways around it. Look at both external and internal obstacles. Who are the people in your way? What are the circumstances blocking you? Do you have the tools you need to get the job done? What are the limiting beliefs you have that keep you from achieving your goal? Writing down obstacles takes them out of your head and puts them on paper, where it’s easier to be more objective about them.

What are the payoffs? What do you get by not reaching your goal? If you succeed, will you have to give up the fuzzy coziness your comfort zone? Will you have to work harder than you do now? Will you have to give up the image you have of yourself as a victim, and, as a result, give up the attention and sympathy that others give you? It’s human nature to want to stay “safe,” especially if it’s comfortable and secure. Forgive yourself for having been willing to hold onto the obstacles, and then let them go. Embrace change and be courageous!

Identify the moment it goes awry. If you have been diligently working towards your goal and then “slip,” identify the moment your thoughts turned from striving to settling. What specific thoughts did you think that allowed you to eat the sweets, spend the money, skip the audition? Have patience and gentleness with yourself on this one – this process takes time and energy, and often requires making more mistakes than you’d prefer. The benefit is that every “mistake” is a learning opportunity. There is no failure – only a chance to learn more and grow more.

Use traditionally “creative” techniques to open up your mind. Drawing, painting, sculpting, singing, writing… they can all contribute to deepening the vision you have of your goal. You can also use them to overcome obstacles – draw the things that are in your way, the things that you are afraid of, the people who aren’t helping, and then rip them up!

* not exactly a technical term, but close.

Resolutions to Results V: Get SMARTY!

So now that you've brainstormed some great ideas, you've prioritized those ideas, identified success, and visualized yourself achieving those goals, it’s time to get writing!

Writing out your goals makes it much more likely to achieve them. How much more likely? 900% (No, I'm kidding I made that up. I actually have no idea.) But from my personal experience, I can say that writing your goals down make them more real, more concrete, and therefore, more achievable.

(This doesn’t mean you can just write them and walk away, however!)

You've probably seen the goal-setting acronym "SMART" before. Lots of different people use these letters to mean lots of different things, and I think that, in general, any way you combine them they're right. The jist of all of them are the same.

However, I take SMART one step further, and encourage you to set goals for a SMARTY(pants), because it incorporates an element of goal setting that is missing from a lot of other approaches; the YES! factor.

Read on, dear reader, read on.

S: Keep it simple.
Your brain wants to remember as little as possible. Focus on the heart of what you want, and write it in the positive (not the negative -- like I'm doing here).

For example, if you want to stop biting your nails, phrase your goal as “I want to protect my nails from harm” or “I want to take care of my nails.” The reason I recommend this is that if you phrase a goal with a negative in it (quit smoking, stop overeating, stop dating losers), your brain remembers the positive – the smoking, the overeating, the dating losers. So give your brain a healthy, positive, SIMPLE thing on which to focus.

M: Make it Measurable
As we discussed in previous posts, if you can’t measure your success, you won’t know when you’ve achieved it. Avoid words like “more” and “better,” and instead focus on how much more? How much better?

A popular goal is to “get in shape.” What does that even mean? Walking a mile or running a marathon? Be specific! Giving yourself benchmarks to measure your progress will not only help you stay motivated, but it will make your goal setting more scientific and less ambiguous.

And ambiguous goals = kinda, sorta, maybe reachable ones.

A: Use Action Verbs
As good writers, actors, teachers, and others know, employing action verbs is critical. The same is true for writing goals. Using action verbs helps you create a goal that has movement behind it. So instead of setting a goal that is to “be more patient,” you can set one to “practice more patience.” It’s a subtle difference, but in those challenging moments, when you’re having a hard time sticking to your goals, having an action that you can perform (like “practice” instead of “be”) will help keep you on your path.

It may also open up other possibilities you haven’t considered. For example, if your goal is to “be in more shows,” if you rewrite it to “perform seven times this year,” that opens up the definition of “perform” and can help you see your goal in a new light.

If you have trouble coming up with action verbs, look here, here, or just google "action verbs."

R: Be Realistic (but challenging!)
"Realisitic" is not a synonym for "easy." Realistic, in this case, means actually doable, or attainable. You have the skills needed to do the work – or can develop them in the process. A realistic goal may push your abilities and knowledge, but it shouldn't break them.

A goal of never again eating sweets may not be realistic for someone who really enjoys candy. However, setting a goal of eating a piece of fruit each day instead of one chocolate is more realistic. You can then choose to work towards reducing the amount of candy gradually as and when this feels realistic for you.

Be sure to set goals that you can attain with some effort! Too difficult and you set the stage for the dreaded "failure," but too low sends your spirit the message that you aren't very capable. Set the bar high enough for a satisfying achievement!

T: Be Time-Bound
As we discussed while we were identifying success, set a timeframe for the goal: for next week, in three months, by your fortieth birthday. Putting an end point on your goal gives you a clear target to work towards, and helps you to break down the goal into chunks you can tackle one week, one month, and one year at a time.

If you don't set a deadline, the commitment is too vague and there's hardly any reason to start taking action now.

Also, be sure to give yourself enough time to reach the goal, but not so much time that you lose interest or motivation.

Y: Yes!! Thrill Yourself!
This is an element that is often left out of goal setting, and which is why you come to me! Be sure to pick a goal that excites, moves, and thrills you! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – if what you are trying to achieve is meant to please someone other than yourself, that goal is destined for failure. Find with WIIFM in the goal! And phrase it in such a way that it resonates with you and serves your values.

For example, “Lose weight” can become “lose 50 pounds by December so you can wear your skinny jeans next Christmas.”


Once you've come up with some goal statements, be brave -- add them to my comments! It will be one way to announce your commitment, and to share what you've learned with other readers!

Resolutions to Results IV: Visualizing Success

Visualizing Success

The power of visualization was tested in the early 1980s by Russian Olympic karate competitors. The coaches broke their athletes into four groups and gave them varying amounts of mental training (visualization) and physical training (workouts), and found that the groups who visualized the perfect execution of their karate moves actually fared better during competition than those who practiced them in the gym!*

So this speaks pretty powerfully to the value of visualization.

Go back to the previous post and take a few minutes to look over the answers you wrote to the questions about what the benefits are for you in achieving your goal. And one by one, try those benefits on, like items from your closet. See how they fit. And if you happen to hear a little voice inside your head saying things like "you can't have that" or "don't be ridiculous," thank that little voice, and tell it to sit on a peg.

Remind yourself, as you put on these benefits, that this is just an exercise. It's just practice, to see if these things feel good enough to motivate you to achieve your goal. And when you've got all these winning elements in place, look at yourself in the mirror, a proud doer of what it is you want to do. Can you see yourself in a place of success?

Grab a piece of paper and make some notes about this. What does it feel like to achieve your goals? Use juicy details – look, listen, taste, and smell what it will be like to reach your goals. Bring colors, sounds, music, flavors, and textures into your vision. But most importantly, feel it! Create a vision that makes you feel motivated, passionate and enthusiastic, and then revisit that as many times a day as you can.

How long should you spend visualizing your own success? As long as you want to. I recognize that we're all busy people, so I suggest starting with thirty seconds to a minute. Do it just after you've parked your car, or for the first 30 seconds on the subway train. Do it while you climb the stairs to your bedroom, or as you pee. Attach your visualization to something you do every day -- that way you'll remember to do it every day!

In the few minutes right before you go to sleep or right before you get out of bed your brain is more receptive to the messages you send it. So why not take half a minute while laying in that comfortable position… warm and cozy… to think about what you want? See yourself getting it. And look, if it doesn't get you to your goal, it will make waking less of a drag!

I have a coworker who is overweight. And he's lost over 150 pounds already, just by changing his diet (not even exercising). And part of what keeps him motivated is that when he looks in the mirror, he sees himself "looking buff." He imagines himself in a swimsuit, on the beach, with his kids proud to be around such a good looking guy. And EVERY time he looks at himself in a full body mirror, he does this.

Because it works.

So try it. Commit to it for a week and just see what happens. If it doesn't work for you, then at least you can cross it off your list of things to try having given it your best shot.

* See Karate of Okinawa: Building Warrior Spirit with Gan*Soku*Tanden*Riki by Robert Scaglione and William Cummins for more details.

Resolutions to Results III: Identifying Success (part two)

In the previous post, we discussed two tools to help you identify success and point yourself towards it -- Measurability and WIIFM (What's In It For Me?) In this post, we'll take a look at two other tools that will help you see what the successful achievement of your goal looks like.

3. Values Served

It’s crucial that your goals be in alignment with your values – the ideas and principles you hold near and dear to your heart. If your goals are not in alignment with your values, it will be harder to achieve them -- because achieving them may make you feel good, but it won’t thrill you in the same way as achieving something you value.

There are a number of ways to identify your values – and each could be a post of its own. I’ll cover these pretty quickly, but values are great things to on your own.

One way to identify your values is to simply think of the ideas and principles that are important to you. What do you value in your life? For me, things like "being real," "taking care of myself," and "growth" are hugely important. Make a list of the things that make up your backbone and keep you walking through life with pride. And if a value seems obvious to you, that's ok -- sometimes the obvious things are what keep us ticking.

Another way to identify your values is to think of the times in your life when you were most fulfilled – and then to look at what was underlying that fulfillment. For example, I remember being extremely happy with my mother recently. She was visiting, and I was doing a puppet show for her. The interaction touched on three values that are extremely important to me – family, laughter, and silliness.

A third way to identify values is to think of something that really pisses you off – rude people on the subway, litterbugs, etc. – and look at what it is inside of you that feels violated when you encounter those things. If your answer is "it's just not right" or "it's rude," dig a little deeper and see what's not right, and what's rude, and why those things matter to you.

Knowing which values you’re honoring by achieving the goal will also help you to identify which values you’re stepping on by NOT achieving the goal. And choosing to live in alignment with your values can be hugely freeing!

4. Good Enough

This is a loaded phrase. To some people it means “just barely getting by.” For others, it’s the unattainable goal, the feeling that you, yourself, are good enough. What I’d like this phrase to mean in this context is much more technical – “how much effort do I need to expend to feel I’ve achieved this goal?” What, in terms of achieving your goal, counts?

Try not to think of this as just scraping by, or doing the bare minimum, but rather, setting the finish line for yourself to cross, after which point everything else is gravy. This is where numbers can come in handy. Is 10 pounds good enough, or do you really need to lose 15 to feel successful? Is eating one extra vegetable a day good enough, or do you want to add in 15 servings a week to feel you're eating healthier?

When you add Measurability to a goal, combine it with the benefits of WIIFM, figure out which values are being served (and which are being stepped on without achieving this goal), and identify the finish line for yourself, you're prepared for success -- because you know what it is!

In the next post, we'll look at Visualizing Success, another important aspect of reaching your goals!

And don't forget -- spread the word! Blog readers can sign up for the Make It Happen Now! workshop at the discounted union price. Just contact me and let me know you saw it here!

Resolutions to Results III: Identifying Success

This is part three in an ongoing series of posts about setting (and reaching!) your goals this year. Part I (Brainstorming Goals) is here, and Part II (Prioritizing) is here. This post picks up where those two leave off.

Identifying the successful achievement of your goal is really important. If you don't know where you're going, how will you know when you've gotten there? In the course of the next two posts, I'll share with you some tools to use to identify a successful achievement of your goal.

1. Measurability

To identify success, your mind actually needs some numbers. If your goal is “to work more” this year, what does “more” mean? Is one show or published article enough? Or do you have to do six shows this year, or four published articles for it to count as “more”?

Similarly, if you want to lose weight, how much do you want to lose? “Some?” Or fifteen pounds? When you’ve lost a pound, are you halfway there, or are you one tenth of the way? It’s hard to stay motivated when the desired end results are vague. It’s also really easy to let yourself off the hook when you use “mushy” words to identify success.

Coming up with numbers helps you distribute the work that you’ll have to do over the course of a year. If you want to teach six classes this year, that’s one every other month, on average.

If you’re not sure how you want to define success, try picking something. Make it realistic -- not losing 100 pounds by Valentine’s day, or getting your demo produced tomorrow. But if you’re not sure what’s realistic, ask your friends and family. Ask someone else who's done what you're hoping to achieve. Or just pick something. If you don’t get there this year, then adjust for next year. If you get there too quickly this year, you can always add to your goal.

2. WIIFM -- What's In It For Me?

WIIFM is all about the benefits you’ll get when you achieve this goal. This is really the driving motivation behind going after this goal in the first place. You can start to answer this question by asking yourself the following questions: “What will I get when I’ve reached this goal?” “How will I feel?” “What will be different once I’ve achieved this goal?” “How will this achievement change my life?”

Answering these questions specifically and richly will help you to stay on target. For big challenges, you can post the answers to the WIIFM questions in areas of high visibility (the fridge, your screensaver, over the toilet). Remembering what you’ll gain from the achievement will help you in the moment-to-moment choice-making.

Join me in the next post for two more tools to help you identify success and point yourself more specifically in that direction.

And don't forget! There's still time to sign up for the Make It Happen Now! workshop that I'm offering on January 16th from 2-5 pm. Information and the sign up button can be found here.

Resolutions to Results II: Prioritizing

In the last post, we covered how to get ideas for what kind of goals to set. (If you haven't seen that post yet, I recommend going back and catching it. It's beauuuuuuuutiful*!)

Something to remember about the brainstorming you've already done -- don’t limit yourself to what’s realistic. Focus on what’s thrilling and exciting. If you get too bogged down in what's "likely" or "doable," you won't stretch yourself to what's possible.

Part II: Prioritizing
Now that you have a list of potential goals, you're going to classify them into three categories: essential, problem-solving, and enhancing/innovating. (Truth is, you can call these three categories anything you want. Point is, we’re identifying the goals that NEED to be done, that WANT to be done, and WOULD BE NICE if they were done.)

How can you tell the difference? If you have any goals that will keep you alive, or provide you food or shelter, they should be given priority over others.

The rest? You’ll have to decide on those with your gut. What makes you feel anxiety, the removal of which would free up your energy to do other things? Which goals thrill and excite you, and which make you feel obligated? Which of the goals feel like a stretch, which feel like a risk, and which feel like you’ll die if you do them? And how much do you want to push yourself this year?

Any goals that will push you forward are good goals, in my mind. Some of you may be better motivated by fear, and eliminating something you're afraid of will be a good goal for you. Some of you may be better motivated by rewards, and so pursuing something thrilling will be good for you. The only thing I recommend is that the goal move you in some way. Going for the same old thing you went for (and didn't likely achieve) last year will lead to more boredom, monotony, and quitting. Pick something that gives you a first-date-quiver. Or a public-speaking butterfly.

Once you've got one top goal (you can come back and pick little sub-goals after we're done), we'll move on to the next step, Identifying Success.

Don't forget! There's still time to sign up for my Goal Setting class on January 16th, where we'll put all these tools into action. More information is available in the upper left hand corner of the screen!


*in my professional opinion

Go from Resolutions to Results!

Happy New Year! May this be the year everything changes for the better!

Goals are an important way to get where you're going. They can help motivate you to live your dreams (instead of sitting on the couch, dreaming them), and they can provide you with invaluable insight about yourself and what's in your way.

I'll be writing a number of posts about goal setting, and using the momentum from the beginning of the year to make some real changes in your life. These are all in alignment with the workshop I'm teaching on the 16th of January on goal setting (and goal reaching!) so if you enjoy the posts, feel free to share them with others, and sign up for the course!

Part 1: Brainstorming

The first step in goal setting is identifying what you want more of in your life. And a good way to do that is through brainstorming. If you've already got a goal in mind for 2010, you can still use the tools below to deepen and specify that goal, and you might find that they'll give you an additional idea or two.

Brainstorming is where you just look at your life with curiosity and fascination. You don't have to know how to reach the goals that speak to you in this exercise, you just have to feel what thinking about these goals does to your body. Do you feel more alive? Tense? Angry? Excited? Just see what comes up as you work with the tools below.

Three tools I'd recommend for brainstorming your goals:
1. The Wheel of Life
2. Roles and Responsibilities
3. Needs/Wants/Deficiencies

1. The Wheel of Life
This is a great tool for seeing where you are in the different areas of your life. Draw a circle on a piece of paper and divide it into eight sections. Then write the following categories into each of the sections:

Career
Family
Romance/Relationships
Community
Fun
Money
Health
Personal Growth

Then, take a moment and assess your level of satisfaction with each area in your life. This isn’t about how much money you have or how many friends you have. It’s about how happy you are with the money or friends you already have.

As you identify how you FEEL about each area (again, not what you’re DOING with each area) draw an arc in the section at the level (from 1-10) that represents your satisfaction. This represents your life as if it were a wheel. (Don't worry, if yours looks like a French horn that was sat on by Andre the Giant, that's pretty normal.)

The areas with the lowest levels of satisfaction are a good place to look for goals. (Go here if you'd like to generate one online.)

2. Roles and Responsibilities
When I look at my life and think about the variety of things I do, I sometimes wonder how I get it all done, and I imagine the same is true for you. Part of the reason I manage to get it all done is because I don’t have to do all of it every single day. It’s as if I have a variety of jobs, but I only have to go to specific jobs each day. I’m responsible for all of the jobs, but some days different jobs take precedence.

Take a moment to examine your life and the wide variety of things you do. You’re a child, a parent, a lover, a friend, a co-worker, a Buddhist, a gym bunny, a tap dancer, a novelist. As you write down each job, underneath it, write out the responsibilities you have that go with that job. “Call Mom on Sundays, eat more spinach, submit samples to recruiters, write your blog” whatever. Where is there room for improvement or opportunity for growth? When you see it, circle that responsibility. It could turn out to be a goal!

3. Needs, Wants, and Deficiencies
While this is a less positive place to look for goals, it is valuable nonetheless. What do you want (or want more of) in your life? What feels like it’s missing? Where are you least powerful? Where are your biggest opportunities for growth? You can uncover these in both the Wheel of Life and the Roles and Responsibilities, but may also already know the answer in your heart. Take a moment to just breathe, ask yourself the question "what do I want more of?" and listen for the answer.

As you do this, be sure that what you claim you want is really coming from YOU, and not from some outside source, influencing who you think you SHOULD be. Make sure these are your wants, not your mother’s, not your boss’, not your roommate’s.

Now you have in front of you a list of possible opportunities for setting a goal. The next step is prioritizing, and we'll cover that in the next post!