10 Steps to Creating Compelling Goals!

I regularly get asked about my take on setting goals. The aim of the process I use is to enable you to select your highest priority goals and maximize your chances of achieving them!

Step 1: List all of the things you want to achieve for yourself in the next year. Include personal and work related outcomes.

Step 2: Prioritize the goals you have written down. Choose the top three and complete the remainder of the Steps for your top 3 goals.

Step 3: Think of what you want rather than what you don't want. Write down what you really want. Ask: What would I rather have? What do I really want?

Step 4: Imagine what it will be like to achieve this goal. Identify evidence that will let you know you have got it.

~ What does it look like?

~ What does it sound like?

~ What does it feel like?

Step 5: Decide the context in which you want this goal. Imagine the goal as specifically as you can. Ask: Who, where, what, when, how... specifically?

Step 6: Check to be sure the goal is self-maintained, in other words that the achievement of the goal is down to you alone. Ask: What will I be doing to reach this? If it is not self-maintained, go back through the steps and re-write the goal so that you and you alone own it.

Step 7: How does having this goal fit with who you are and who you want to become? Is it in alignment with your values? Ask: Is this an expression of who I really want to be?

Step 8: Check consequences of achieving the goal relative to your life and relationships. Ask: Who (what) else does this affect?

Step 9: Do you have the resources and choices to get your outcome? Ask: What resources do I need to get the outcome?

Step 10: What action steps will you now take to achieve this goal? Are the steps the right size? If they are too large, break them down into smaller steps. They need to be small enough that you could complete an individual step inside a day’s activities. Take your first step today.

Happy New Year!

Rob

What the whole world wants is a good job!

It is fascinating to witness how the world has changed over the past 25 years. What is most incredible is how important work has become as a universal need – a truly global need. Gallop released results form their World Poll yesterday, here are key highlights:

• The leaders of countries and cities must make creating good jobs their No. 1 mission and primary purpose because securing good jobs is becoming the new currency for leadership. Everything leaders do must consider this new global state of mind, lest they put their cities and countries at risk.
• Leaders in education will be forced to think beyond core curricula and graduation rates. If you are a school superintendent or a university president, you'll need to recognize that students don't want to merely graduate -- their education will need to result in a "good job."
• Lawmakers need to contemplate whether and how new laws attract or repel a wide range of individual value systems. If enough people are sufficiently repelled, then the new laws will effectively strangle job creation.
• Military leaders must consider it when waging war and planning for peace. They must ask themselves whether military strikes, occupations, or community policing will effectively build a growing economy with good jobs. The opportunity to have a good job is essential to changing a population's desperate, and violent, state of mind.
• The mayors and city fathers of every city, town, and village on Earth must realize that every decision they make should consider the impact, first and foremost, on good jobs.

You can read the summary report here:

http://gmj.gallup.com/content/print/28936/Global-Migration-Patterns-and-Job-Creation.aspx

This changes everything!

A special thanks to Lois Raats at www.ready2grow.com for passing this long!

Flexible Work Arrangements Work!

In a recent discussion with readers, we were chatting about the importance of vacations and the need to actually take them. Another important wellness initiative is flexible work arrangements. Increasingly many employees are seeking flex schedules in order to achieve work life balance. What is interesting is that this is not only good for the individual and their family; it is also good for the company.

A recent survey conducted by Watson Wyatt has found that 70 percent of companies with flexible work arrangements have found them to provide business benefits. The survey also found that flexible working arrangements contributed to effective talent retention (26%) and lower staff turnover (19%) (Source: http://www.watsonwyatt.com/news/press.asp?ID=17666 )

This clearly is a positive and important trend in career and organizational development!

Trust Your Instincts!

I find life interesting in the number of times lessons are repeated until we really understand them. This is particularly true when it comes to intuition (commonly referred to as “instinct” or “gut feeling”). One of the most common things my clients’ say to me is that their intuition about a job / person / issue was right. They consistently say that they need to listen to their intuition more.

I have never had a client say they should trust their intuition less!

People Really Do Want To Help Other People

I had a wonderful follow-up phone chat with an individual today. I have been coaching her to develop her networks, to get out and actually talk to people to learn about where their organization was going and what types of needs they had and how she may be able to help them. It took a lot of coaching; however, things have turned out well.

During each of her first three meetings, the people she met consistently said how much they appreciated getting to know her and that it was really helpful to learn more about her skills and interests. They repeatedly affirmed that what she was doing was invaluable. This was key as prior to that she was concerned she would only be imposing on others. Indeed, developing contacts and networks can be really scary, and yields many gains!

It reaffirms what we all need to focus on: building relationships!

The Return & Re-entry

It is fun preparing for holidays; the challenge is always in the return! Regardless of what people do, where they come from, the re-entry requires an adjustment. I love the outdoors and this summer I was able to experience some of Northern Ontario’s finest lakes. The serenity of this photo says it all.

Cheers, Rob

Vacations are Good for You!

Over the past two decades I have noticed this very strange trend. People are working more and taking less vacation time. Additionally, when the do take time off, they maintain e-mail contact with the office. Whether it's less vacation time, or increasing contact with the office while away, we are losing our vacation time. What's the point of all the work if we can't enjoy the fruits of our labour?

It is important to remember that vacations are actually as asset to productivity. My interviews with clients over the years indicate that performance increases when people come back refreshed from a vacation. If you work seven 50-hour weeks in a row, you'll get no more done than if you worked seven 40-hour weeks in a row. Taking time off also improves your career by keeping you alive to have one.

North American society is under some incredibly self-destructive illusions about work, that we can't stop, that more hours are better. I get emails from people who've had nervous breakdowns, heart attacks, their families are falling apart--all because we don't know where true productivity comes from rested brains, not fried ones.

Vacations can also cure burnout, the last stage of chronic stress. When you're burned out, your work suffers and don't have the strength or presence of mind to perform well. But by regaining emotional resources, vacations can break the burnout cycle - but it takes two weeks for this process to occur, which is why long weekends aren't long enough to be vacations.

The process of going away gives you the time to step back and ask yourself where you're going in life, enabling you to make adjustments to your life and work that we can't see when we're caught like a rat on a treadmill, constantly running. You need to step back to see where you're going and whether you want to go there.

North Americans have the shortest vacations in the industrialized world. While the Europeans get four to six weeks, the Australians a month and even the Chinese get three weeks off, we average a paltry 8.1 days after a year on the job, 10 days after three years. But much of this is in theory, because a lot of vacations are only on paper these days, as employers stall, cancel, or just outright eliminate vacations. The trend is rapidly shrinking vacations.

As a part of my own re-energizing, I am off on vacation and will return the last week of August.

Enjoy your summer!

Rob

Understanding Your Career as a Story

Over the past two decades, there is one thing that I have come to understand over and over: people’s careers are truly stories. Every time I sit down and listen to someone share their concerns and aspirations for their career, they engage in a story telling process.

There are characters, challenges, opportunities, failure, scenes and most of all, there are patterns. Out of the chaos of their lives emerge clear patterns of who they are and what they really want in life. There are patterns that show how they succeed and patterns that show how they fail.

What is very encouraging to witness is the increasing dialogue about this within the career development profession. For example, I encourage you to have a read of Kathy Hansen's Blog to explore traditional and post modern uses of storytelling in careers. You can check it out here:

http://www.astoriedcareer.com/archives/2007/03/plotting_the_st.html

She also provides a number of excellent examples to help get started on this.

Enjoy! Rob