Change the World

Admiral McRaven's top 10 tips for students to change the world. This is excellent and applies to all of us, at home, personally and in business. Watch his speech to see for yourself.

1. Make your bed every day - making your bed everyday into a profession. The wisdom of a a simple act.

2. Everyone must paddle. You can't change the world alone.

3. Measure a person by the size of their heart not the size of their flippers.

4. Get over being a sugar cookie and continue to pursue your goals with vigour.

5. Don't be afraid of the circuses, there's no such thing as failure only feedback. 

6. Sometimes you have to slide down the rope head first. Risk doing something different.

7. Don't back down from the sharks, confront your fears.

8. You must be your very best at the darkest moments under the keel.

9. Start singing when your up to your neck in mud, one person is all it takes to give hope.

10. Don't ever ring the bell.

So having listened to Admiral McRaven what little tasks to you need to complete daily to help along the way with the big tasks? How well does your team function, do they all have a paddle? How do you measure other people? How determined are you to pursue your goals? How do you react when the going gets tough? Have you the strength and courage to do something different? When the sharks are circling how do you control your fear? Where do you find your inner strength at the darkest moments? How do you get into a positive place when the negative wants to overwhelm you? Will you ever ring that bell? 

SMARTER Goal's, now we've got you going

Defining our goal is particularly important because our subconscious requires very clear instructions of what we want.  Any vagueness or self doubt when defining our goals will result in a poor picture a weak vision of what you will achieve.  

 

'SMARTER' is a useful memory tool with which to remember the fundamental principles of effective goal setting, explore our goals more fully, and ensure that they are as clearly and precisely defined as possible.

Specific: Your goal or goals should be always be clearly and positively defined, the why you need to achieve it.  In this way, they should relate to outcomes and actions that are specific rather than ones that are general.  Rather than simply say that we are going to be a better manager or that we are going to get fitter, we should be looking to describe in exactly what way we are going to be a better manager and in exactly what way we are going to get fitter. Note if you are unable to articulate clearly the why, the likelihood is 'ITs NOT A GOAL'!

 

Measurable: Our goals should also be measurable such that we have a benchmark against which to monitor our progress on a weekly, daily, hourly basis...you get the idea.  In order to do so, we should be asking ourselves how we will know when we are a better manager and how will we know when we are fitter.  If we look at the goal setting process as a path that we intend to follow, we need to know where the path starts and where the path ends.  We also need to have established milestones along the way in order to ensure that we are not deviating from the path that we have chosen.

Attainable: Many people set goals that are completely out of reach for them or knowingly impossible to achieve.  Although this practice is clearly self-defeating, many people do this in order to have a built-in excuse for not achieving their goals.  We must always have a realistic chance of reaching our goals, combined with a belief that we can reach them, in order to stay committed to them.  This is the essence of “realistic” goal setting, although we must be careful how we use this term – extraordinary things are not achieved by realistic people!  The use of “fantastic” goals – those that relate more to the original dreams and aspirations that motivated us towards making our goals in the first place – can be extremely useful too.  Incorporated within our visualisation they can be extremely motivational and help support our realistic goals – so long as we employ them appropriately.
 
Repeatable: Your goals should achieve long term change.  Short-term and intermediate goals (sub-goals), meanwhile, provide useful “stepping stones” that can help us to maintain our focus.  In order to do this, however, our goals not only have to be measurable – they need to be repeatable too.  This also helps in monitoring our progress towards our goals.

Time-phased: In order for our goals to be measured in any real way they need to be time-phased.  All to often people have goals that they are going to commit to “someday”.  Goals such as these are very rarely achieved – and certainly not within the timeframe originally intended.  Having developed an action plan we should immediately place a “start” and “achievement” date on our goals and use this time scale to monitor our progress.
 
Exciting and Fun: Many people set goals that are so low as to present no challenge to them.  Often this is because their goals are ones that they feel that they “should” be working towards rather than ones that they really “want” to work towards.   Sometimes it is because they have borrowed someone else’s goals rather than deciding upon their own.  Goals should be motivating and, as such, need to be exciting.  If our goals do not excite us, we need to redefine and upgrade them or exchange them altogether. And remember to enjoy the journey.

Recorded: Recording our goals is extremely important – both by communicating them to other people and simply writing them down.  By doing so we provide ourselves with prominent permanent reminders of what we want to achieve and how we are going to achieve it.  In this way, the use of goal setting cards can be extremely useful in helping us to maintain focus on our goals, whilst written agreements, pledges and declarations can enhance our level of commitment by tying us into a “psychological contract”.

SO WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR, YOU’VE GOT THE HOW TO SET YOUR GOALS, KNOW THE LIMITATIONS YOU POSSESS AND NOW HOW, SO DO IT, MOVE YOUR LIFE FORWARD AND ACHIEVE YOUR DREAMS. BE WHO YOU DEFINE YOURSELF AS!

The Why

The Why Guy, one of TEDs talk top 20 for good reason.

Come On Get Your Goals Set & Realise Your Dreams

 

Read a great book and wanted to share the philosophy with you all; 7 Strategies for Wealth and happiness by Jim Rohn.

To keep it really simple just follow these instructions, however before I get started a health warning! Don’t read on unless you really do want to move your life in a direction you aspire to, you want to achieve, you have dreamt of and feels right for you. Tired of that negativity in your mind telling you ‘not to be daft, you’ll never achieve that, who are you trying to kid, let’s get back to reality ‘ or you ‘so call friends’ telling you to be realistic, there are more important things to deal with, it’s a nice idea BUT!

Let’s remember dreaming is a right we inherited as a child, dreaming of what you were going to get for your Birthday or Christmas, what you were going to be when you grew up! What happen, when did you lose the ability to dream and by virtue change and take control and responsibility for your life? Maybe it’s because we are not happy with a label like dream, it’s too fanciful, too fairy tale and not realistic! OK let’s put a ‘grown up’ name to it, let’s call that dream a goal. The biggest difference having grown up is realising there are ways and means to realise a goal or a dream.  We didn’t know what would be involved with becoming an astronaut as child, however we have a better idea today; probably a few scientific degrees, I guess being able to fly, maybe fit and healthy. Now clearly that sounds simple enough, but we can all see that alone is a great deal of work and commitment. The point is you are all able to achieve our goals once we know where we want to go.

So what? This is about choice, deciding to do something different, if that you then this simple exercise is as good a starting point as any………READ ON>>>>>

So we are going to have a brain dump! First step is to find yourself a piece of paper and a pen. Got it GOOD, now divide the page into 6. Top left write BE, Top right write DO, the left to right in the remaining boxes SEE, HAVE, GO and finally bottom right SHARE:

 

 Now this is the good part, don't get into a 'flat spin' or 'too in depth' just start writing and write down your goals for the next 10 years under these headings.

What do I want to BE?

What do I want to DO?

What do I want to SEE?

What do I want to HAVE?

Where do I want to GO?

What do I want to SHARE?

The key here is not top write to much detail, the the saying goes 'keep it simple stupid'! So don't write lengthy descriptions, just write a brief memory jogger. "I want a Porches 4S" as 4S.

So how long should this take...well no more than 15 minutes, there will be time to refine and reflect in due course. The important thing is to write what comes naturally.

Next you'll need to write the number of years it is going to take you to achieve each of the goals. Don't be too definitive round it up or down to years, general 1, 3, 5 or 10. Now just pop the number with each of the goals. What's important here is to ensure you have balance in your forecasting. There's little point to having lots of 5 and 10 years goals and no 1 or 3 years, its likely to result in 'just putting things off', postponing what it is you need to get started. Likewise without the long term goals you'll be lacking some long term vision and something to really strive for. At this point you'll end up with multi-layered goals, you'll be able to maintain momentum, as you reach and achieve one goal you'll be already on the way to the next and so on!

Now with all the goals you have written you need to prioritise the top 3 or 4 in each time category. Your now going to distil what each means and represents, you need to write a paragraph on each detailing the following:

• A description of what you want; and be detailed, really tap into your minds eye, relay visualise the goal.
• The reason why you want to achieve or acquire the item, its likely at this point that you will find out if you really want it or its just a passing fancy and not a goal. Bottom line if you cant define why you should class it as a whim and reprioritise and replace it with a goal.

The point here is the real reason is the driving factor the real motivation behind the goal, so spend some time here as this is what will inspire and keep you focused on achieving it.

Once you have completed this process why not have your goals written out and presented nicely in a  journal or diary and then make sure you review them each and every week. Assess what progress you make and measure it, how much closer you are to achievement. Doesn't matter how little it matters that you are ever closer towards realising.

So get writing!

Here Jim talking about Goal Setting:

 

Jim has some great books which will help in your pursuit of your dreams and making them a reality.