Feet to the Fire: Keys to Personal Accountability

Posted on by Scott

andrew-mirror-e1452990922179By now, close to a third of all New Year’s resolutions have been abandoned. Think about that. Millions of people announced an intention to make some kind of significant change in 2016; and less than three weeks later have walked away from that commitment. Is it any wonder that more and more people have decided to stop making resolutions altogether?

I guess some figure it’s just too hard to keep their resolutions. Losing weight sounds like a great idea, but when you really think about it, losing weight is not easy. It requires changing the way you think. It requires changing the way you act. It requires developing new habits. And change is very, very difficult.

But isn’t that the point? Aren’t resolutions supposed to be hard? Shouldn’t meaningful change come at a cost? After all, if it was really that easy to make significant changes to your daily life, you’d have already done it, right? There’d be no need to set some kind of goal for improvement.

We make resolutions in good faith. We set goals for ourselves with the most sincere of intentions. So many attempts at change fail though because we just don’t hold ourselves accountable. Starting a new routine tomorrow sounds great, but when tomorrow comes – with all of its unexpected twists and turns – the road isn’t as easy as we thought it would be and we give ourselves permission to back off. How can we hold our feet to the fire so that the meaningful change we desire takes root?

Renew your commitment to yourself.

  • Remind yourself why you set the goal in the first place. There’s a reason you identified this goal. Something happened that caused you to decide things had to be different. Hold on to that thought. Hold on to the emotions that welled up inside you and led you to declare that, going forward, your life would be different. Let those feelings propel you through the toughest parts of your transformation.
  • Give yourself permission to let other things take a back seat. One of the most common reasons for abandoning new routines in our life is lack of time. Guess what? That’s an excuse – nothing more, nothing less. We all have the same amount of time every day. We just choose to allocate it differently. Someone once said “I don’t have time” is another way of saying “That’s not important.” If you want something bad enough, you won’t have to find time for it. You’ll make time. Learn to let lesser things slide in pursuit of your identified priorities.
  • Write it down. Post it. Look at it. Commit to your goal in writing. Tape it to the bathroom mirror, the refrigerator, or the television. Make sure you can’t go a single day without being reminded of the commitment you made to yourself.

Create systems to hold yourself accountable.

  • Schedule it. Remember the SMART Goal filter? Conducted properly, that exercise will provide you with specific action steps to accomplish your goal. Now take those steps and identify exactly when and where you are going to take them. Write them on your desk calendar. Enter them into your smartphone. What gets scheduled gets done.
  • Create reminders. Now go back and set reminders to yourself so appointments don’t sneak up on you and catch you off guard. Set an alarm each night to remind you to pack the gym bag. Put a post-it note on the door to remind you to grab your lunch. Use texts and emails to stay on top off your new commitments.
  • Partner with others. One of the best ways to hold yourself accountable is to hold someone else accountable at the same time. Find someone who shares the same goal and work together. They say misery loves company. I say success is better when shared, and a little competition is good for the soul. Anyone want a Fitbit buddy?

Ask for accountability.

  • Tell others what you are doing. This time next year, people are going to expect Mark Zuckerberg to have delivered on his personal challenge to build an artificial intelligence system for his home. He publicly announced his intentions, essentially asking others to hold him accountable. A goal kept secret is easy to walk away from, but a public declaration invites accountability.
  • Give others permission to ask for updates. Having announced your goal to others, ask them to challenge you. Beg them to do it now, while your resolve is firmest. Share with them why this is important to you and request that they periodically check on your progress.
  • Welcome consequences. I define accountability as the application of both truth and consequences. Define some milestones and associate rewards (positive consequences) with reaching them. Identify some negative consequences with failure. We are naturally drawn to things we want and move away from things we don’t want. Use this basic instinct to your advantage and ask friends to help keep you honest.

Personal accountability is easy when the task is easy. Persevering in the face of obstacles requires discipline. Ultimately, you have to decide how you want to perceive yourself. Are you a champion, or an also-ran? Champions hold themselves accountable. They do what has to be done. If you want to be a champion, then be one. Don’t think about it. Don’t hope for it. Don’t wait for it to happen to you. Just be a champion. Do the things champions do – every day.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION:

How do you hold yourself accountable? Share your tips on our facebook page.

What Will You Do Differently This Year?

Posted on by Scott

fitness-957115_640The New Year has arrived. Are you ready for it? Are you energized and excited? Are your goals set? I’m not talking about your business goals; things like revenue and customer growth. I’m talking about your goals – the things you want to accomplish this year. Do you have them written down?

A lot of people start January with a list of New Year’s resolutions; things they want to either start or change in order to improve their quality of life. Memberships to gyms and dieting plans are skyrocketing right now. Of course, by February, most resolutions will be forgotten or abandoned. I think that’s sad, because self-improvement is not something to be taken lightly. We should honor those commitments and work hard to succeed at them.

One of my favorite business and motivational speakers, Zig Ziglar, once said “With definite goals you release your own power, and things start happening.” I believe that is true. Without personal goals, I feel like I am just meandering my way through life. Maybe good things happen, maybe they don’t; but without goals I feel like I’m subject to the whims of fate.

Setting well-defined goals is like having a GPS for life. It creates not just a target to reach for, but a set of guidelines by which to get there. Once I’ve decided where I want to go and the route I want to take, the trip becomes easier and much more enjoyable.

Career Coach Dan Miller suggests seven different areas of life in which you should set personal goals. That may be a bit much for some people; especially if you’re like me. I’m not very disciplined, so having too many goals to achieve lessens my chance of accomplishing any of them. But let’s start with his list. See what goals you come up with for each of these categories.

  1. Financial. How much do you want to be earning this time next year? How much do you want to have saved or invested? How will improving your financial well-being impact your quality of life?
  2. Physical. What bad habits do you want to shed this year? What good ones do you want to pick up? What does your physically fit self look like? How will a change in your physical well-being impact your quality of life?
  3. Personal Development: What new skills would you like to learn this year? What gifts do you have that aren’t being utilized? How will spending time on your own development impact your quality of life?
  4. Family. What changes need to be made with regard to those closest to you? What does a healthy relationship with your significant other look like? What about the relationship with your children? How will more meaningful relationships with your family impact your quality of life?
  5. Spiritual. What do you feel is God’s purpose for your life? What changes do you need to make in order to grow in your faith? How will a deeper spiritual walk impact your quality of life?
  6. Social. Are you comfortable with the number and types of people that make up your social circles? What changes do you need to make in order to be a better friend? How will richer social relationships impact your quality of life?
  7. Career. Are you utilizing your unique skills, abilities, and passions at work? What would it look like to do your best work? What would it look like if your team was operating at their best? What changes need to take place in order for this to happen? How will doing your best work impact your quality of life?

Like I said, that’s a lot to consider. I can easily conceive of at least two goals for each category; but 14 goals is just too much to carry. The list needs to be trimmed down. Personally, anything over 5 is out of the question; and even that is pushing it. So the next step is to cull the list. Look at the last question I added to each category. Prioritize your list based on the level of impact you feel each goal will have on your life. Decide how many you think you can reasonably work on and put the others aside. Those can be saved for later on, after we’ve made significant progress on the most important ones.

Of course, just having goals identified isn’t enough. We need to have a plan to help us achieve them. Next week, I’ll share the goals I’ve set for myself and the strategies I’m putting in place to achieve them. Until then, I’d love to hear what you come up with.

The Art of the Do-Over

Posted on by Scott

goalsNow that the hustle and bustle of Christmas is over, attention turns to New Years. Across the globe, people are busy deciding where they will be and who they will be with as they count down the final minutes of the year and celebrate the arrival of 2015. For many, this also means making New Year’s resolutions – commitments to changes in behavior that will improve their lives.

According to research conducted by the University of Scranton, the most popular resolutions made for 2014 were:

  1. Lose Weight
  2. Get Organized
  3. Spend Less/Save More

That same study however, also found that only 8% of those who make New Year’s resolutions actually succeed in achieving them. As soon as one week after making their resolution, 25% report they’ve already broken them. Less than half are still on track after six months. That’s an alarming rate of failure. In fact, I know a great many people who have become so frustrated with their inability to achieve their resolutions that they have decided to stop making them.

We all make promises, to others and to ourselves, that we fail to keep. We fail for any number of reasons; lack of time or money, demands placed on us from others, even random and unforeseen circumstances. But one thing that seems to act as a stumbling block for me is self-control. I sometimes find myself struggling between that which I should do and that which I want to do. For instance, I know I should jump on the treadmill in my backroom for twenty minutes but I’d rather spend that time browsing the internet or watching TV. I should buckle down and finish the big report I have due for work, but I’d rather check out what my friends are doing on Facebook. This lack of discipline keeps me from achieving the goals I’ve set for myself and cause me a great deal of frustration.

Is it any wonder then that, every December, so many of us make the same resolutions we did the year before? How can we overcome this natural tendency to lose steam and forgo the needs in pursuit of the wants? Wharton professor Katherine Milkman offers one suggestion in a strategy she calls the “fresh-start effect.”

Milkman feels that, rather than getting frustrated with our inability to stay on track, we embrace it. Knowing that our motivation to perform is strongest in the days and weeks following a milestone, we should use them to initiate a fresh start toward our goals. Here’s how she puts it:

“At the beginning of a new week, the start of a new month, following a birthday, or after a holiday from work, people redouble their efforts to achieve a goal. Why? Because in these fresh-start moments, people feel more distant from their past failures. Those failures are the old you, and this is the new you. The fresh-start effect hinges on the idea that we don’t feel as perfect about our past as we’d like. We’re always striving to be better. And when we can wipe out all those failures and look at a clean slate, it makes us feel more capable and drives us forward.”

As a kid, I loved do-overs. So did my friends. We made a point to allow a certain number of do-overs in any pick-up game we played. It allowed us to focus on being successful rather than on being a failure. I think it’s sad that as grown-ups we seem to have forgotten the art of the do-over. Not that everyone gets an unlimited amount of free passes (even as kids we only allowed one or two per game); but we can all use a fresh start from time to time.

As you look forward to 2015 and make your list of resolutions – or goals, or commitments, or whatever you want to call them – aim for excellence, not perfection. Know that you don’t always have to get it right the first time. Know that if at first you don’t succeed…well, you know the rest.

 

New Year’s Resolutions for Leaders

Posted on by Scott

Fuochi d'artificioIt’s only the day after Christmas, but many people are already looking ahead to the new year – and their new year’s resolutions. Some of my friends have sworn off making resolutions, preferring instead to identify a personal challenge or two. Personally, I don’t see the difference. Regardless of what you call it, the idea is to identify one or more goals you commit to working toward during the next year.

Of course, many will settle on some version of the “Big 3” resolutions:
1. Eat Better
2. Exercise More
3. Lose Weight.

Resolutions aren’t just for transforming your body. The start of a new year is a great time to focus on developing good habits that will help transform your organization. Here’s my take on a trio of resolutions – consider them challenges – for you in 2013. I’ll use the same three resolutions likely at the top of your personal list.

1. Eat Better. It’s been said that you are what you eat. And just as ingesting healthier food will do your body good, the proper mental diet can improve your thinking and decision making. Resolve this year to read, watch and listen to material that helps you become a better leader. Subscribe to trade publications and newsletters to help you stay on top of the latest trends in your industry and few others. Invest in some audio books or podcasts from recognized thought leaders. Signup up for webinars and check out free You Tube videos that show you how to master new skills. A steady stream of the right thoughts and information will fuel your efforts to lead your organization to new heights this year.

2. Exercise more. Just like most resolutions, many organizational efforts die in the planning stage. Some suffer from a lack of resources, while others die due to a lack of true commitment. But most, in my experience fail because there’s a lack of accountability for true results. Make 2013 the year you actually get things done. Focus your efforts by turning ideas into specific action items with owners and deadlines. Teams work better when every member understands the goal, has a clearly defined role to play and is held accountable for following through on their assignments.

3. Lose weight. A of of us carry around extra weight – weight that prevents us from moving as quickly as we could or doing the things we should. Organizations carry some unhealthy weight too. Outdated or cumbersome policies can stifle progress toward meaningful objectives. So seek out and eliminate red tape that does more harm than good. A good place to start would be policy that inhibits free communication, timely customer service, or employee creativity.

New Year’s resolutions are notoriously difficult to keep. That’s probably because we tend to bite off more than we can chew. You can’t reverse a lifetime of bad habits overnight. So improve your chances of success by making small changes. Set two or three small goals for yourself – things that are easy to achieve, but meaningful. The boost you get will help propel you into the next one.

I’m excited about what 2013 has to offer. I hope you are too. Happy New Year!