Goal Setting as the Key to Success

Do you want more self-discipline?  Write down a goal, no matter how simple and then do it.  Repeat.

Over 100 years ago, a man named Orison Marden wrote the best-selling self-help book of his day. "Pushing to the Front" was a huge success and industry tycoons like Henry Ford praised it.   In it, the author said that to be successful, two things matter above all else.  "Get-To-It-iveness" and "Stick-To-It-iveness".  This is pretty obviously good advice and is a good springboard to talk about goal setting.

No matter what your definition of success, your happiness at work is part of it.  Whether you want to be a high powered executive or just keep food on the table and spend quality time with your family, then the solution is the same.  You have to be successful at work.  That doesn't mean you have to be a mover and shaker.  It means that you have to do your job as well as you can.  Even if all you want to do is to show up and work for 8 hours, then make those 8 hours the most productive hours possible.  How can you do that?

• Know what is expected of you.  Keep a task list and make sure you are working on those items.
• Set dates for yourself and complete those tasks by your dates.
• Add things to your list that your boss doesn't expect
• Get to it
• Stick to it

No-one wants to work at a job they don't like.  And almost everyone wants to do a job well and be recognized for their effort.  If you want to like your job, follow the simple steps above every day.  The sense of accomplishment you get from being productive and pleasing others will make your job more enjoyable.  Along with that will come the rewards that make it worthwhile, in the form of recognition, security,  pay raises and increased opportunities.

The other side-effect is that  when you go home at night, you can put work out of your mind.  You know for a fact that you worked on the most important tasks and stayed focused all day long.  No-one can ask more of you than that. 

No matter what you want out of your job, follow these steps and you will enjoy it more and be more successful at it.  And then you can devote more time and energy to your personal life.  That will put you in the driver's seat of your life.

Play the game all out

Bear with me on this story… it starts out like Just Another Golf Story by Just Another Middle-Aged Guy. But there's actually a non-golf point to be made.

Recently I've been taking lessons at GolfTec (if you love golf and love technology, you should go check them out). The instructor, Tim, has gradually been helping me fix one thing at a time in my swing and after several lessons it is starting to come together. This weekend, I came home from my lesson all enthused because my club-head speed had gone from 85 MPH to 100+ MPH. If you aren't a golfer, trust me when I say this a good thing. I won't bore you with the details of what he changed except to say that he got me to throw my heart into the swing and really follow through. Bruce Lee made a similar point when he said that you must strike with "emotional content".

As I was describing this change to my wife, she asked one deceptively simple question - "Why did you learn the original bad habit in the first place?" That is, why was I holding back and putting the brakes on my swing? I have been a Bad Golfer for such a long time, it took some effort to think back that far but I finally managed it.

The first few times I hit a golf ball, the ball didn't do quite what I wanted. That is to say, it went in random and unpredictable directions. Rather than taking lessons and fixing the underlying problem, I just made it worse. Because I didn't have any confidence in where the ball was going, I started to hold back a bit. To be tentative.

But as my instructor in kempo-karate says, "If you're going to play the game, play it all out."

Without doubt, there are times to be conservative and to hold a little bit back in reserve. But there are also times when that doesn't cut the mustard. There are times when you need to jump in with both feet. Whether you are opening a new business, falling in love or learning to sky-dive, you need to put your whole heart into it.

Is there anything you are doing in your life where you are holding yourself back? Is there anything where you could be more successful if you took the parking brake off? Think about it and let me know.