Happy New Year to you! I wonder if you have set some New Year's resolutions, personal or professional goals, or just want to make some improvements at work?
Lots of blogs, tweets and articles in the Press have been offering thoughts regarding this annual process. I imagine for many of you, that you will not achieve what you desire and will likely be disappointed. In fact, many might have given up already!
I thought I would add to the debate, not by discussing that we should set goals, but more about how to increase the chances of success.
First, I want to share a story of sporting excellence. In his book Inspired, Sir Steven Redgrave talks about the fact that "sport isn't always about the most talented. Talent is god-given raw material, but it's what happens next that counts". He fondly recounts the tale of John Nabers, a college kid from Illinois, USA who he believes "must go down in sporting history as the finest example of human refusal to be deterred by an apparently insurmountable goal".
John Nabers went to the 1972 Munich Olympics as a 'domestique', the college backstroke champion who would swim the heats of the medley relay allowing Mark Spitz to swim the final and win one of seven gold medals. Nabers did his job, but made a vow that next time it would be different!
He did his homework, extrapolating and calculating that to achieve individual gold in the 100m backstroke would require a time of 55.5 secs. At that time his personal best was 59.5 secs, which is a huge gap in swimming terms. He nearly gave up, but instead looked at the gap in a different way. He had 4 years of training, so that meant reducing the time by 1 sec a year! He then broke it down again....
- he trained for 10 months a year, so would need to improve by 1/10th second every month
- with roughly 30 days in a month, he would need to improve by 1/300ths second every day
- training for 4 hours a day meant he calculated that he would only need to improve by 1/1200th second every hour - THAT WAS ACHIEVABLE!!
Clearly, it was harder than that for the next four years, he had to develop new strategies, tactics, changes to his technique, diet and training in order to keep on delivering those small improvements. But he made the Montreal Olympics and with a time of 55.49 sec he was crowned Olympic and World Record holder, winning a further 3 gold medals.
So, how can this approach work for you?
Often, we use SMART objectives, but don't look at trying to break them down further into 'bite-sized chunks' or how we might actually achieve them. Try using these as a start point:
- clarify your goals - be really clear on just what it is you are trying to achieve
- establish a measure of success - how will you know that you have achieved it? Frame this in terms of a positive outcome. So rather than "lose weight" think of "I will have more energy to play football with the kids".
- break the goal down into smaller steps and measures - such as Naber's 1/1200th second every hour.
- concentrate your mind on how you will actually achieve each small step - what have you got to do differently, better, start or stop doing?
- regularly review your progress and your actions - find someone whom you respect and trust that can play a variety of roles from support to challenge or, if it works for you, just plain nag!
If you would like some help in clarifying and implementing personal or business change this year, give me a call. The benefit might well be far higher than the cost!
