Monthly checkup, and a progress report

It’s been a busy week, so I didn’t get my end of the month checkup on goals written last week. So here it is, a bit late.

We’re far enough into the year that if you haven’t been working consistently on your New Year’s resolutions (if you made any), you’ve probably either given up on them, not made any progress on them, or forgotten them. That’s OK, but if you want things to improve in your life, you need long term goals and some kind of plan to reach them.

For those of you who were reading in December when I wrote up my suggestions for resolutions, this will be familiar ground. For those of you who weren’t, here are three very specific suggestions for dealing with your long term plans.

First, write them down, ideally every day, but at the very least review them daily. More on this at the end of the post

Second, find a small step you can take daily (i.e. a habit you can create) that will help you move toward the fulfillment of each of your goals. It takes three weeks to develop a habit; give yourself a month, then reassess to see if the habit is established, and if so,  if it’s helping you toward your goal and if you want to add a new one this month.

Third, share the goals with someone who can hold you accountable for your progress.

If you’ve been doing this, have you seen any progress? My bet is you have. What additional steps can you take this month to improve?

A personal report: I have been writing down my goals and intermediate steps to reach them daily, pretty consistently since January 1. Some of them have involved breaking habits that have been in place literally for years. Within about two weeks (less than what it normally takes to develop a habit!), the habit was gone, and I haven’t relapsed since.

The only thing I did differently was write my goals out each day, focusing on the positive outcome I wanted and not the negative action I wanted to lose.

I’m a skeptic when it comes to techniques; I’ve tried too many things to believe in magic bullets. And it’s possible that there are other explanations for the change. But this seems to be working well for me, whatever the reason, and I see no good reason to risk stopping.

The takeaway is that if you’re having problems reaching goals or breaking habits, try writing out the positive outcome you are looking for daily. I also included what I saw as a necessary step to achieving the long-term goal. This only takes two or three minutes at most total for all of my four big goals. Try it for a month and see if it doesn’t help you move forward.

Today Matters

“The secret of your success is determined by your daily agenda.”

This statement sums up John C. Maxwell’s book, Today Matters: 12 Practices to Guarantee Tomorrow’s Success. Maxwell argues that success is built on making good decisions and then following through on those decisions daily with disciplined action. It's not an event, it's a process.

The book is organized around 12 areas where we need to make good decisions and follow through on them:

1. Today’s ATTITUDE gives me possibilities.
2. Today’s PRIORITIES give me focus.
3. Today’s HEALTH gives me strength.
4. Today’s FAMILY gives me stability.
5. Today’s THINKING gives me an advantage.
6. Today’s COMMITMENT gives me tenacity.
7. Today’s FINANCES give me options.
8. Today’s FAITH gives me peace.
9. Today’s RELATIONSHIPS give me fulfillment.
10. Today’s GENEROSITY gives me significance.
11. Today’s VALUES give me direction.
12. Today’s GROWTH gives me potential.

It is worth noting that there are a number of interesting connections between these 12 areas and the 24 character traits identified in positive psychology.

The book includes exercises to help you make decisions and manage them in each of these areas. A month spent on each (remember—it takes 21 days to establish a habit, and I think it’s a good idea to give it a bit more) will pay off tremendously in the long run. Even a week on each would be a good thing, though that might lead to trying to change too many things at once, which is a recipe for failure.

Today Matters is another way of highlighting the principles outlined in The Slight Edge and applying them systematically in a wider range of areas. I highly recommend both books.

First Month Checkup

We’re coming to an end of the first month of 2012. For those of you who set goals for the New Year, how are you doing? It’s time for your first month’s checkup.

• Did you write down your goals and review them daily (ideally rewriting them)? If so, have you discovered anything new about them? Did you modify them in any way, or are you happy with them the way they were? If they need refinement, no would be a good time to think through how you should adjust them.
• Did you put in place a new habit for each of your goals? If so, is the habit well established by now? If not, keep at it for another month. If so, is the habit helping you make reasonable progress toward your goal? Do you want to stick with that habit or add something else to it this month?
• Did you enlist others to help you be accountable for your goals and habits?

 Remember, if nothing changes, nothing changes. If you want this year to be better than the last, you need to get on it now, doing the small things that compound to make big changes over time. If you haven’t read Olson’s The Slight Edge, you really should. And remember the quote from Aristotle: “We are what we do habitually. Excellence, then, is a habit.” Let’s strive for excellence in all areas of our lives.