2014 After Action review

2014 After Action Review

And so it is another year passes and we enjoy the opening of 2015. No doubt crossing that line in the sand, as the clock passed to 0001hrs many set the resolution to change, commit, get focused and achieve their goals. Here’s the thing, what underpins the why, the drive to change, do things differently? What drives the decision in the first place? Is it a level of dissatisfaction, not managing to achieve what you set out 12 months previously? Setting the bar too high and being unable to reach it?

I firmly believe in the formula for success ‘Dream – Goal – Learn – Plan – Act’ and when it is fully applied it will result in success. I’m also a firm advocate of ‘feedback not failure’, failure is a state of mind, whilst feedback can open your eyes to different opportunities. This has shaped my dreams for 2015 and set my personal and business goals, From my military service I have continued to reap the benefits from taking a look at the rear view mirror.  Conducting the After Action Review (AAR).

In the military context the after action review forms the critical part of the planning and execution cycle, to put it into context it is the ability to revisit, review and learn from the actions and experiences of specific activity over periods of time. The AAR is a function which is effectively applied at all levels from the operational end of tour AAR or short training exercise AAR. It isn't the role of the senior officers (CEO),rather a collective review conducted at all levels. It enables a complete detailed review in order to build on lessons learnt, best practice and ensure the entire organisation applies the findings. The key to the success of AAR is the application of the recommendations and conclusions in the following planning cycle. It also majors on the effect of experiences from all levels and takes a 360 view.

And so after a year it is time to conduct my after action review. What does your after action review look like? As I review my business plan and my personal aspirations from 2014 it allows me to make informed decisions for 2015. Looking towards my dreams for 2015 and beyond I can see, with clarity where and what I will aspire to and achieve in the long term; to be precise 4 years from now, and indeed having a vision to 10 years from now.

Looking back over 2014 there are some simple pointers to consider as you look to the future: 

• What are the real big dreams and how much closer has 2014 brought you to them.
• Have you defined the little dream? Remember it’s not all about the big stuff, the little things make a big difference in the long run and lead to achieving the big dreams.
• With clarity in your dreams you can then strive to set the goals to achieve them.
•  Make sure your goals are SMART.
• Specific, when making your goal be as specific as you can in what it is.
• Measurable, how will you measure progress?
• Achievable, you must be able to achieve the goal. No point in setting out to achieve the unachievable!
• Results orientated, having a distinctive outcome.
• Time based, without setting a time to have the goal achieved it will simply be something to do.
• In order to achieve the goals what do you need, what’s the learning required:
• I may need to do more of…….
• Which may mean I need to stop or do less of……
• I may need to associate or meet with…..
• I may need to stop associating or meeting with……
• I may need to learn……
• I may need to read……
• I may need to be focused on…..
• I may need to have greater self-discipline with…..
• I may need to commit to…..

·        With the learning the plan can be shaped to achieve the goals.

·        All that is left is to act.

So how 2014 was and what can you learn to further your journey towards your goals in 2015 and your dreams beyond?

Here's looking to the future.

Happy New Year 

What do you want to achieve? Goal Setting.

Why Set Goals?

Goal setting is used by top-level athletes, successful business-people and achievers in all fields. Setting goals gives you long-term vision and short-term motivation. It focuses your acquisition of knowledge, and helps you to organize your time and your resources so that you can make the very most of your life.

By setting sharp, clearly defined goals, you can measure and take pride in the achievement of those goals, and you'll see forward progress in what might previously have seemed a long pointless grind. You will also raise your self confidence, as you recognize your own ability and competence in achieving the goals that you've set.

Many people feel as if they're adrift in the world. They work hard, but they don't seem to get anywhere worthwhile. A key reason that they feel this way is that they haven't spent enough time thinking about what they want from life, and haven't set themselves formal goals. After all, would you set out on a major journey with no real idea of your destination? Probably not!

Goal setting is a powerful process for thinking about your ideal future, and for motivating yourself to turn your vision of this future into reality. The process of setting goals helps you choose where you want to go in life. By knowing precisely what you want to achieve, you know where you have to concentrate your efforts. You'll also quickly spot the distractions that can, so easily, lead you astray.

Starting to Set Personal Goals

You set your goals on a number of levels:

• First you create your "big picture" of what you want to do with your life (or over, say, the next 10 years), and identify the large-scale goals that you want to achieve.
• Then, you break these down into the smaller and smaller targets that you must hit to reach your lifetime goals.
• Finally, once you have your plan, you start working on it to achieve these goals.

This is why we start the process of goal setting by looking at your lifetime goals. Then, we work down to the things that you can do in, say, the next five years, then next year, next month, next week, and today, to start moving towards them.

Setting Lifetime Goals

The first step in setting personal goals is to consider what you want to achieve in your lifetime (or at least, by a significant and distant age in the future). Setting lifetime goals gives you the overall perspective that shapes all other aspects of your decision making.

To give a broad, balanced coverage of all important areas in your life, try to set goals in some of the following categories (or in other categories of your own, where these are important to you):

• Career - What level do you want to reach in your career, or what do you want to achieve?
• Financial - How much do you want to earn, by what stage? How is this related to your career goals?
• Education - Is there any knowledge you want to acquire in particular? What information and skills will you need to have in order to achieve other goals?
• Family - Do you want to be a parent? If so, how are you going to be a good parent? How do you want to be seen by a partner or by members of your extended family?
• Artistic - Do you want to achieve any artistic goals?
• Attitude - Is any part of your mindset holding you back? Is there any part of the way that you behave that upsets you? (If so, set a goal to improve your behavior or find a solution to the problem.)
• Physical - Are there any athletic goals that you want to achieve, or do you want good health deep into old age? What steps are you going to take to achieve this?
• Pleasure - How do you want to enjoy yourself? (You should ensure that some of your life is for you!)
• Public Service - Do you want to make the world a better place? If so, how?

Spend some time brainstorming these things, and then select one or more goals in each category that best reflect what you want to do. Then consider trimming again so that you have a small number of really significant goals that you can focus on.

As you do this, make sure that the goals that you have set are ones that you genuinely want to achieve, not ones that your parents, family, or employers might want. (If you have a partner, you probably want to consider what he or she wants - however, make sure that you also remain true to yourself!)

Setting Smaller Goals

Once you have set your lifetime goals, set a five-year plan of smaller goals that you need to complete if you are to reach your lifetime plan.

Then create a one-year plan, six-month plan, and a one-month plan of progressively smaller goals that you should reach to achieve your lifetime goals. Each of these should be based on the previous plan.

Then create a daily To Do List of things that you should do today to work towards your lifetime goals. 

At an early stage, your smaller goals might be to read books and gather information on the achievement of your higher level goals. This will help you to improve the quality and realism of your goal setting.

Finally review your plans, and make sure that they fit the way in which you want to live your life.

Staying on Course

Once you've decided on your first set of goals, keep the process going by reviewing and updating your To-Do List on a daily basis.

Periodically review the longer term plans, and modify them to reflect your changing priorities and experience. (A good way of doing this is to schedule regular, repeating reviews using a computer-based diary.)

SMART Goals

A useful way of making goals more powerful is to use the SMART mnemonic. While there are plenty of variants (some of which we've included in parenthesis), SMART usually stands for:

• S - Specific (or Significant).
• M - Measurable (or Meaningful).
• A - Attainable (or Action-Oriented).
• R - Relevant (or Rewarding).
• T - Time-bound (or Trackable).

http://www.mindtools.com/page6.html

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!