Category: Achievement

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Get Your Results Right

Think you control the results on your project? Think again.

3 ways to get this content – Vlog, Audio or Blog.

The full blog, read for you. Enjoy.

A meeting made me cry.

In a good way.

Ok, so crying at work is never really a positive. It messes with your makeup and then you have to buy more Kleenex. Tearful co-workers can freak people out, but a little sniffle of gratitude never hurt anyone.

Here’s the setup. It’s a big project, unplanned, unbudgeted, needs to be done in three months and four departments must agree to make it happen. I called a meeting. I invited everyone I could think of. I sent the invite in the afternoon for the following morning at 8:30 am. I wasn’t sure anyone would come.

Everyone came. A dozen people changed their plans and got on zoom.

Right now, at this moment, I still feel grateful.

Why? Because we all know, I was not in control of that result. That result was created by a team of people dedicated to getting things done.

I could influence the result by selecting the right people, picking a time that most people had open, and wording the invitation correctly. I could contribute to the result by acting quickly to get the meeting on the calendar, by showing up myself, and by doing my best to distribute a meaningful agenda. What I couldn’t do was control how other people responded. That was on them.

So the fact that the meeting happened and the project kicked off and got underway rapidly was a broad result made of up of lots of personal contributions.

Realizing that all those people measured themselves against a yardstick of being responsive, engaged, collaborative, and open-minded got me thinking. I thought – I’m proud to be one of them. I work with great people. I’m so impressed. I’m so lucky. Those thoughts give rise to a powerful feeling of gratitude. And yeah, I get a bit choked up.

That story is an example of the difference between results we control and results we don’t control.

Self-coaching is all about evaluating your own thoughts, feelings, actions and results so that you can have a better experience at work and in your life.

As part of that process, you look at your results and tie them back to your actions.

You tie actions back to feelings and, ultimately, to thoughts.

It’s important that you start that process by analyzing the right set of results. Personal results. Our actions create personal results. Our personal results can influence and contribute to broader results, but those broader results can’t be tied back to our own stack of thoughts, feelings, and actions. Only our personal results do that.

Why? Because other people influence and contribute to broader results and guess what? We don’t control other people.

Let me lay it out for you visually:

Situation: Three month deadline on brand new project.

Thought: I need to quickly know which teams are impacted and those teams need to understand the project.

Feeling: Urgency

Actions driven by the feeling of urgency: review my understanding of impact, schedule meeting for the following morning, invite representatives from many areas to ensure no one is missed, provide a concise, clear agenda. Acknowledge the inconvenient timing and express appreciation to the invitees. Send invitations.

Result: Everyone shows up.

For the purposes of coaching yourself, that result line is incorrect. It’s what happened but it’s not the result for me that the actions created for me.

To better find my personal result, I’ll take another look at the thought.

I need to quickly know which teams are impacted and those teams need to understand the project.

The result I created for myself after doing all those actions was: I acted gave myself the best chance to find out who was impacted. I provided meaningful information to other teams as soon as I learned it, something that matters to me.

Everyone showing up was the result of a dozen personal results, driven by a dozen different thoughts, which caused a dozen people to show up on zoom. It had very little to do with me beyond the invitation. That result, of the meeting taking place and the project kicking off less than a day after I learned of it, belongs to the collective.

Why does focusing on personal results matter?

If it seems selfish or self-centered to spend your time focusing on your results rather than the broader result, remember this. We still have to work hard to influence and contribute to the broader results. Tying our personal growth and job satisfaction to actions and results outside our control is losing game. You’re not going to be any better tomorrow at controlling other people.

The most control you’ll ever have is over your own thoughts, feelings and actions.

Results that are in your control, tie back to your own standards and are meaningful to you personally are the big engine of job satisfaction and engagement. Feeling like your work matters is huge. Feeling like your work matters to you, and knowing that you’re in alignment with your own standards the root of engagement.

So when you’re reviewing results, don’t forget to look at both sets. The broader results and your personal results.

And that? Is just a good thing to do.

Want to learn how to set your own bar, deliver your best results, and stop being overwhelmed by the chaos?

I’ve got a program for that: Reboot Your Day Job.

In six short weeks, you can get back control, make the big decisions you’ve been putting off and be more organized and productive than you ever thought possible.

Six weeks. $600. Everything changes.

Book a free 25-minute session to find out how my program can change your life.

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Action

Action is the antidote to despair – Joan Baez.
It’s also been touted as the fix for fear, anxiety, and doubt.
With an intro like that, who wouldn’t want more action?

Nothing dogs us like action, or rather – inaction. Facing fears, making a difference, and just plain getting through the workday, all require action. So why is that so many of us struggle to act? Let’s dig into action, decisions, and getting stuff done.

Today’s blog, read for you. Enjoy.

First off, let’s divide the world into two kinds of action. Tony Robbins called it massive action and passive action. Educators call it learning from resources and learning by doing. Either way, we’re talking about consuming information versus actively attempting something. Often, we postpone taking action by learning, reading, watching, talking. All of which are fine in doses, but don’t hold a candle to engaging with the world and trying something. In a sneaky, sneaky twist, our brains LOVE passive action. After all, what’s safer than reading a book or watching a movie? Our brains love safe; they love passive action.

So when I’m talking about action, I’m talking about massive action. Massive action, that has mass, movement, impact and engagement, is the action that we want to call on when we’re trying to achieve a goal. Whether that goal is getting your new cool idea noticed at work, or saving democracy – I think we can all agree that massive action is what’s required.

Do dare what is right, not swayed by the whim of the moment.  Bravely take hold of the real, not dallying now with what might be.  Not in the flight of ideas, but only in action is freedom.  Make up your mind and come out into the tempest of the living.  -Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Ok, so our brains are totally against going out into a tempest. Things HAPPEN in a tempest, things CHANGE when we take action. As soon as you attempt to take action, your lazy brain, all chillin’ on the sofa with its tank top and stretchy shorts on, looks over and pauses whatever it’s binge watching. Why? Because its job is to stop you from getting hurt. What’s the easiest way to do that?

Depends. Could be it might frighten you. It might tell you that your idea will get you laughed at. Could be it might tempt you... chips and salsa anyone? But you are too smart to let that stop you. Be ready. And if your mid-brain wins this round, notice how it did it. I noticed that my brain could get me to skip my morning walk if it was raining. Can you spell treadmill? Boom. Then my brain told me that using the treadmill was selfish. After all, the dog needs to walk too. So for a while, I let that be my excuse. If the dog can’t go, I don’t go. Wait? What? Tricky. Turns out, the dog’s chill if I use the treadmill as long as I don’t make her use it with me.

He was a sociopath, I think, in love with himself and no one else, craving action for its own sake, and indifferent to any long-term consequences, a classic Man of Destiny.  – Hocus Pocus  Kurt Vonnegut.

Truly, that’s not the best quote for this article but I just love me some Vonnegut.

So action for action’s sake isn’t what we’re talking about. Running around with no clear goal or without thinking things through can be trouble. However, most of us take way too long to come to a decision. We want to make the perfect decision. In reality, making the best decision we can, in a reasonable amount of time, is all we need to do.

Check out my article on decision making – Beauty & the Beast

Once the decision is made, action is where it’s at. Taking real action sends a message to ourselves that we can effect an impact on our own lives. In fact, any meaningful results you’ll ever get come from taking action. We live in a world that feels out of control. We have invisible viruses, we have bosses that make decisions based on information that we aren’t told about. We use technology we barely understand to do our jobs. We have our retirement invested in a stock market that, from the looks of it, is disconnected from reality. Our brains don’t like any of this. We like certainty.

Action takes us out of rumination and engages us with the world. Want another bonus for taking action?

Dude, the day feels longer when you fill it with diverse actions towards meaningful goals.

Try it. Compare a day with no plans, when you engage in passive action to a day when you take five or six different actions towards a goal. Which day felt longer? Which one felt like a life well-lived.

Lady, I’ve just told you the secret to having a long life. No matter how many years you actually live, you experience more life when you’re taking action.

And that? Is just a good way to feel.

If you want to take more action and figure out how to get past the mental roadblocks to action, sign up for a free 25 minute mini session. We’ll discuss how coaching helps.

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Agency

Is this a random spill or symbolic artwork? How you make sense of your world is entirely in your mind.

I’ve struggled this week with how to make a blog on personal power at work relevant in the light of current events.

Although I can listen, see, imagine, and sympathize, I will never experience what it is to be a black person in America. Although I’m the mother of a police officer, I will never know what it’s like to be one. I can’t walk in any of these shoes.

Here are the shoes I can walk in – a pair of pop-art pumps with chunky heels – because these shoes belong to me.

These are literally, my shoes.

Standing in those shoes, here’s what my experience as an American woman has taught me – systemic, conscious, and unconscious bias is 100% real.

Here’s what I can tell you – I have been told and shown, based solely on gender that I am ridiculous, inconvenient, a threat or worse yet – a disposable object.

Here’s what I believe – People do abuse power and when anyone in power acts as if the rules and laws don’t apply to them, they should be held accountable.

So let me be clear – on the macro level, I for sure don’t think we should pretend inequality, injustice or violence doesn’t exist. That would be crazy. I believe in social agency. I believe in protest, in free speech, and the ability to leverage our influence to change our laws. We have a truckload of problems with bias in this country and we should get to work on them.

For the purposes of maximizing our impact at work, I don’t think it serves us to relinquish our sense of agency, even if the deck is stacked against us. Which brings us to today’s topic – agency.

Agency: the ability to act independently, to impact the course of your life, and to set goals for yourself. A sense of agency is linked to subjective well being on both a personal level and for us as a society. As my grandmother used to say, as long as you have choices, you’re OK.

So many of us give our agency away on the day-to-day. When we give away our agency, we’re giving away our sense of control and, along with it, our own power.

You get to look at the world around you and decide what’s working and what’s not. You can change your mind about all sorts of things.

You change how you view yourself.

You can change what you think about your job, your boss, your capabilities, and your value.

If you’re going to embark on a journey of this sort, let me encourage you to change the way you view your own agency. I’d like to encourage you to see yourself as the CEO of You, Inc. No matter what deck is stacked against you at this moment, you have the choice to validate that reality by giving up or spend some of your time on the planet trying to reshuffle the cards. My advice is always choose to reshuffle.

For this at-work example, let’s say that I want to move up one level in my organization and to do that, I’ve decided I’ll need to demonstrate leadership on a large project.

One way to approach this is to ask my manager to give me a large project to lead. Then, I can go back to my desk and wait for the project that never comes. When review time comes, I can be frustrated by the fact that nobody gave me a chance to shine and, I can settle for whatever wages I get, remaining in my current position, probably doing less tomorrow than I did yesterday, because, well, nothing works.

Let me tell you, this happens all the time. Why? Because the person in that example believes that they must be given a project by someone else. Can she control her boss? Hell no. Can she make someone give her a project? Not before the next review cycle comes up and not without legal action and money. Maybe not ever. So this is a completely dead-end way of dealing with the here and now – even if it’s true! This is why, in the moment, I always act in favor of personal agency.

So let’s say, despite the fact that I’m an old woman of average intelligence, I think I have the ability to maximize my personal benefit, and demonstrate my effectiveness, regardless of what project my boss gives me.

Now let’s say because of this belief, I tackle even small projects with a professional process. I document what I do, I create templates to use to build efficiency, I keep track of how long I expect it to take, how long it actually takes, and what caused any variance. Let’s say I sat down at the start of the project and wrote out my expectations of how I would perform and in the end, I evaluated my performance.

Basically, I treat this little project that I’m doing by myself, as if it was the big opportunity I’ve been waiting for. I’ve assumed all the authority over how it will be handled. I’ll be evaluating my own performance, so my manager’s feedback is now secondary. I’ll be learning from the project and improving my skills. Because I’ll understand why any problems in delivery or performance occurred, I’ll be able to build in processes to prevent future delays or disappointing behavior of my own making.

Here’s what I’ve just done – I’ve taken all the power over my performance and my opportunities, out of the hands of my manager, and put it all right on my desk. I’ve basically just made my manager irrelevant in the context of this project. I don’t need to know when he wants it done, because I already know when it will be done. I can just check to see if that will suit him. If not, I can offer up options. I’m not forced into a timeline, I’m negotiating one. I don’t need him to tell me what he expects because I know what results I’m delivering. Now I can just confirm I’m delivering what he’s looking for. I basically treat my manager like he’s my customer. I have lots of power. I have the goods and services he wants to buy. I just have to keep myself relevant.

Do you see what I did there? It’s still work. I still need to deliver stuff and make it good but it is a completely different ballgame if I see myself as the owner of Myself, Inc., and my manager as my best customer. My work experience is no longer at the whim of my boss, my work life is at the whim of ME. If my boss doesn’t agree with my evaluation, well, that just means we need to communicate better. Or I might decide to make it mean nothing at all.

What I find actually happens is I get really curious about what my boss thinks. I’m not devastated when my boss has something critical to say. I’m fascinated. I take this bit of information and analyze it. Did I miss something in my own eval of me? Great! I’ll add it to the working template for next time. I already do this for myself, so getting this information upfront is like getting a free trip around the monopoly board.

Ok, sound good? So to build out your own little Yourself, Inc. empire where you rule with confidence and independence, take back your own agency.

  1. Commit to working for yourself and refuse to let your boss control your opportunities. Strike a blow for the republic of you!
  2. Study your own work by stating beforehand what you will be doing ( time estimates, results expected, and expectations of your own behavior) and then by evaluating what actually happened.
  3. Take it one step further and ask yourself how you can be better, faster, or more professional next time and add that information to your documents.
  4. When the next project comes, repeat the process but shoot for improvement using the information you learned.

In a short time, you’ll have great confidence in your ability to deliver, your ability to estimate when you’ll deliver and how you’ll approach the work. When you have that kind of bedrock under you, it’s easy to ask good questions about projects, you can estimate quickly and with confidence.

It doesn’t work if you don’t put in the effort to do it fairly. You must lay out your expectations for yourself upfront. Don’t just do work and take stock at the end, looking back at the project and feeling good or bad about it. You won’t build confidence and communicate to yourself that you take your work seriously.

Because you value your own work and treat it with respect, you no longer have your ego tied to the size of the project you’re handed, the team that comes with it, or really anything external. All your satisfaction is internally driven. When your own evaluation of your performance is the most important one you get, there’s a lot of freedom in that. When you hold yourself accountable to you, and you treat yourself like a professional, you have just shown yourself who you are at work. Better yet, you’ve just shown everyone else, too.

And that? Is just a great way to work.

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Confidence and the Big How

Think you have to know how to do something before you can be confident?
Think again. I’m gonna lay it down – get ready to take notes.

Straight up. Confidence is a feeling. Which means, say it with me, you can create it anytime, anywhere. On your worst day – confident. On your best day – confident. Sounds good doesn’t it?

Wanna hear all about the free site for Medical Front Liners & other stuff? Click on and let me read you the blog.

We get tangled up when we think that we need to have built up a history of skill and results in order to have confidence. If you’re talking about how certain you are that you can deliver a piece of software within the time allowed, then yeah, ok, knowing that you’ve done it before gives you confidence.

SCRATCH. Back the truck up.

No. Truth: the feeling of confidence comes from your thoughts. So if you think – I’ve done this six hundred times so I’m sure I can do it again – that thought can bring confidence. Sure. But stick with me, it’s the thought “I’m sure I can do it again” that generates the feeling of confidence.

Now, let’s ditch arrogance right here. Arrogance is not confidence. Arrogance is thinking you are somehow, someway “better” than someone else. That’s not what we’re talking about.

Confidence is the feeling of self-assurance that comes from faith in your own abilities.

The Big How

My coach gets us to build confidence by having us do stupid dares. We dare ourselves to ask someone for a free dinner, we ask for a better seat at a concert or a new job. We dare ourselves to publish a book, or a blog or sing in public. We dare ourselves to start businesses, to grow our businesses, to get on a live event and coach people. We dare ourselves to enter a 5K, return a product, or just ask for help. Sometimes we dare ourselves to jump up on a park bench and recite a poem – for nobody, in front of everybody.

Why? Because all of these things are uncomfortable. And the more you put yourself out there, and do something that has you squirming and wanting to back out, but you do it anyway, the more you realize that you’re OK. Ok with being turned down, OK with being thought a fool, OK with being ridiculous, vulnerable or just plain wrong. OK with trying and failing, OK with trying again and OK with figuring out how.

At work, we are confronted with things we don’t know how to do – all the time. How to get it all done? How to create something, fix something, get our message across, and sometimes, just how to be happy.

Here’s the big secret – you don’t have to know how to feel confident. All you have to do is have faith in your ability to figure it out.

The Big How – is about writing down where you are now, where you want to go and then listing out all the things that can stop you from getting there. For each obstacle you write down the plan for overcoming the obstacle.

Say I’m an analyst and I want to be a team lead – here’s some obstacles:

  • People don’t see me as a leader
  • There are no current openings for a team leader
  • I’m not sure what a team leader does
  • I don’t have any large projects where I can demonstrate leadership.

Now, I think about how to overcome the obstacles.

  • People don’t see me as a leader – So I can demonstrate clear leadership of myself. I can volunteer to set up meetings, which will put me in control of the agenda and the meeting and the follow-up. I can look for opportunities to be of service to my team, and demonstrate teamwork and leadership. I can dress a bit better, carry myself like a leader.
  • There are no current openings for a team leader – but I can tell my manager I want to prepare for one. I can say I want to be the next in line, her replacement. All managers need a replacement in training. I can ask for additional work that will help me learn what she does.
  • I’m not sure what a team leader does – I can meet with other team leads and find out what their responsibilities are, I can imagine what would be helpful and take that work on of my own volition.
  • I don’t have any large projects where I can demonstrate leadership. I can lead smaller ones, and demonstrate skill, and when I notice that my boss has too many balls in the air, I can ask for the chance to take one. I can get on committees and work on their projects. I can ask for a project.

Now, I have a path. More obstacles might come, but for now, these are the ones I see. If more come, I’ll add them to the path. For now, I’ve got a lot of work to do. Some of these things will fail, but since this is my path, my Big How, it’s ok. I’ll just think of something else.

For some of these, I might have to carry the big how with me for a few days, asking myself over and over – how can I solve this obstacle? Eventually, your brain will give you an answer. Try it. Even if it fails, you’ll get more information about what to try next.

Once you’ve done this process consciously a few times, you start to understand that you have the best ability on earth – the ability to figure out The Big How.

You can start anywhere and go anyplace.

How’s that for confidence?

And that? Is just a great way to feel.

If you would like to have me walk you through this process, click here and book a free 25 minute session.

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Don’t Trip on the Rug

Your dream wasn’t canceled, but if you’re not seeing it… maybe you forgot to renew.
This week’s blog is part 5 of the 5-part series on permanent change

For the audio version of this blog, scroll to the end and press play.

I’d done it all. I’d worked through the lifestyle implications of the changes I want to make happen. I cleared out space for my new work. I believed it could be done, kinda. I was planning and doing, heading towards change when all of a sudden, it wasn’t in my frame of reference. I couldn’t see it and then I tripped.

This week, I was seriously trucking along. I was committing tasks to my calendar and executing them. I’d hit a major milestone on my side hustle and delivered results. At my day job, I was making progress on several fronts and I was keeping my health goals in line…I even got up early and went out for a run… in the dark… and yet…Boom!

A total eclipse of my plans.

A trainee showed up that I forgot was arriving. He smiled at me and I thought “Oh no! What am I going to give him to do?” I had to cancel a launch at my day job to allow for more testing and fixes. I fell behind on daily tasks for one of my side ventures. Then, I tossed all my health goals to the wind, plopped some cheese and crackers on a plate and went out to my porch, in 24-degree weather, to brood.

Stuff happened.

Stuff is always going to happen; it doesn’t mean we should go out on the porch and brood. If we do, it certainly doesn’t mean we should stay there. Especially if it’s dark and cold out.

The business of change is the business of renewal. Daily, weekly, any time.

Here’s the deal. All or nothing thinking is the enemy. At work, believing we know it all is the first step toward failure. When we think things are black and white, cut and dry, done and over, we lose. We don’t listen to other people’s ideas, we don’t try to think of improvements, we don’t run hard right up to the deadline. We give up, think small and don’t listen.

The same is true when we’re trying to change. If you indulge in all or nothing perspectives, you’re taking the easy way to failure.

Telling myself if I don’t do everything I planned, my plan is a failure, is ridiculous right? I’m being too hard on myself.

Or am I? I might be going easy.

It’s easy because I don’t have to sit down and evaluate where things went south and revise my plan. It’s easy because I don’t have to pick myself up and try again. It’s easy because I can just stop.

Too bad that’s not how we frame this type of quitting to ourselves. We don’t call ourselves out for this kind of cheating. Instead, we wallow a bit. I know I do. I feel like a failure, I ruminate on it, but I also give up. It feels bad, but it also feels like a bit of a relief.

The business of change is the business of renewal. Daily, weekly, any time, all the time.

So how are you doing on your goals? Did you set any for this year?

If you did, were you gung-ho for a bit?

How are you feeling now?

Or are you so gun-shy that you no longer set goals?

Here’s what I know:

You can always start over, every day and twice on Sundays.

If you shoot for the stars and hit Everest, heck, you hit Everest. Dude.

There’s more than one way to anywhere.

The business of change is the business of renewal – and revision.

Renew your commitment.

Revise your plan.

Do yourself the favor of seeing reframing and re-trying as the most compassionate things you can do for yourself. Because they are. There is no reason you have to take the best route to your dreams. Take any route, take all the routes. It’s a dream. It’s your inheritance as a human. A dream is a privilege.

The business of change is the business of renewal.

Whatever your dream is, whatever you want to achieve, don’t cancel it. Spend time with it. You were designed to go after it. It’s in your DNA.

If you would like to take the first step to permanent change, click here.

The business of change is the business of joy.

And that? Is something worth chasing.

Click play for the audio version of Don’t Trip on the Rug
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How To Plan A Coup

There’s a big difference between learning to play the banjo and making a living at it.
That difference is lifestyle.
Understanding the concept can be a deal-breaker when it comes to maintaining your achievements.

Coup – pronounced KOO, meaning sudden takeover or great success.

You know you want one. Heck, I want one. Do you want to make next year the most amazing sudden achievement of personal and professional synergy you’ve ever experienced? Do you want to finally do the thing you say every January you’ll do? If there was one thing you could give yourself for Christmas, would it be a coup?

Dude! Let’s do it! Dudette, high fives all around. I’m so in. Are you?

Whoops. What’s that? You were just excited there for a minute, I know you were. But the reality is coming in like a conquering hoard, isn’t it? You’ve been here before. One minute you’re all in and the next minute… you remember… you’ve tried this before.

Not. Cool. Not. Coup.

Not to worry, that’s normal. To find out why, read my blog on Past Based Thinking

Ok, come on back to me. What if I told you there is a way forward, even if this isn’t your first try for a promotion, your first attempt at writing that book or your first rodeo? What if I told you that you can plan and execute a takeover of your own life?

I’m telling you… there IS a way forward.

I’ve learned the hard way that not planning on the difference between achievement and lifestyle can lead to backsliding on your dreams.

We experience this at work all the time. Remember when the entire company created onboarding documents? When was the last time you updated them? What about that great plan for staying on top of your technical skills? Do you even remember your plural site password? That – is what I’m talking about. The difference between getting your boss to buy you that amazing tech training subscription and actually taking the classes on the regular is the difference between achievement and life-style.

If you know me and work with me, you know that I lost weight a couple of years back. And you know that I’ve put a lot of it back on. What a shame, huh? But not surprising right?

What I was missing was future focus. Basically, when I lost weight – I gained an identity problem. I wrote about this – Nirvana Park. What I’ve learned is that for permanent change, you need to understand how you’re going to get something, and then how you’re going to keep something.

Achievement is getting something, lifestyle is how you keep it.

To prepare for creating a mind-blowing, life-altering new year’s resolution worthy of the ab-fab human you are, start by exploring your goals in relation to both how to get something and how to keep it. You can do the steps below thinking only about work, only about your personal life or combine the two.

  1. First answer the question: What is the result I want by the end of 2020?
  2. Next answer the question: What are the things that are important in my life?
  3. Make a list of all the activities, priorities, results, etc you want your life to include.
  4. Add a column for “GET” and note for each item what you would have to do to get this attribute, result, etc. If you already have it, just put a dash.
  5. Now, add a column for “KEEP” and note what you have to do to keep or maintain this result.
  6. At this point, it may seem you can’t possibly have it all. You’re right on track.
  7. Now, take each item, or group of items, and write a sentence that looks like one of these ” Being _____________ means spending more time__________ and less time _____________.” or “Having ____________ means (doing/being/saying/taking) less of ____________________ and more _____________”

Do you have a much clearer idea of where this new achievement or goal is about to take you? Keep going, do this for each item in your list. Do you feel a bit more positive? I hope so. The last step is to really look at your answers.

What does this lifestyle require you to give up? What does this lifestyle require you to add? Can you seriously say this is the way you want to live?

Here’s what I learned by dropping 45 lbs and gaining 30 back – getting thin has a beginning and an end. Staying thin – does not. Before you set out to achieve something, ask yourself if this is a one-time thing – like buying a hot car – or a lifetime thing – like getting healthy. If it’s a lifetime thing, then you need to plan out both how to get what you want and how to keep what you want.

Achievement & Lifestyle.

So are you in? Do you want to plan a coup?

Click here to Download your Free Worksheet

This year, between The Great Gift Exchange and Auld Lang Syne, let’s plan your coup.

And me? I’m with you all the way.

See you next week for part 2 of the Five Steps to Changing Your Life

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Getting Out of Your Own Way

OK – it’s time to put the Cheer into Cheerful time management…
If you lack follow-through, I have great news.
There’s nothing wrong with you.
It’s time to learn how to get stuff done, so you can celebrate your success.

Welcome to the final installment in my 3 part series on cheerful time management.

So far we’ve been talking about tactics. How to plan your time so you feel energized at the end of the day. How to use blocks of time to make sure you get what you want out of life.

Back in May, I blogged about an essential truth of time management. Here’s the gist of that blog:

You still have to deliver value and results to the company that pays your salary – on the regular and in good faith, but as long as you think there is something more important or someone more important than your own decisions about what you’re going to do with your next 24 hours? You’re sunk. You’ll waste time, give up time and let work slide into personal time and personal time slide into work time. You have to value yourself before you can set up a time management system that works.

And in March, I discussed how we each have to fight for our time. Here are the basics of that blog:

  1. Spend the majority of your day doing the work that is most expensive or most skilled.
  2. Plan results – not time.
  3. Refuse to work at the expense of yourself.
  4. Stop using work to escape your life. 

The titan in the room is … EXECUTION.

There’s no point in planning your days, ordering your activities or doodling about results if you don’t actually do anything. How do I know this? I’m a daydreamer, a procrastinator and I have a very hard time making myself do stuff. So how do I run two internet businesses and work my day job – and still have time to play with my granddaughter?

You can try to use willpower. If you’re reading a bunch of blogs on time management, I’m guessing that hasn’t worked so well for you. It’s not my go-to either.

You can build habit stacks. Carefully constructing triggers, habits, and rewards, like breadcrumbs leading you to your goal. Great for exercising daily, not so good for getting through a whole day.

Or – you walk your little brain through a 15-minute analysis that will open you up and make tackling your next task something you actually want to do.

I’m going to give you that process, right here. It’s going to look very simple. You are not likely to actually try it. I swear on my day-planner that this process is worth every minute you spend on it.

First, sit down and fill half of a sheet of notebook paper with all the random thoughts you have about your next task (assuming you’re procrastinating doing it.) Let’s say it’s a schedule for a project. You write all the stuff you’re thinking as in my example below. You can see it’s just free-flowing and not all that logical or positive. This is the excellent material my brain hands me when I don’t manage it well.

I’ll never get this done on time. All this stuff can’t be done. I’m just fakin’ it here. We’ll never pull this off. Maybe we can do it. If I don’t put together a schedule, I’ll never have a chance at succeeding. This project was doomed from the start. It’s not my fault. It’s all my fault. Writing this is a waste of time I should be doing email. The project is important and I can write a schedule. I hate doing this.

Great stuff, right? If I stop the process right now, or if I don’t even bother to write my thoughts down, I’ll feel overwhelmed or fearful. Those feelings send me right to my inbox to knock out a few emails and get myself a nice hit of reward hormones. I feel better in the short term but that project will still be there in the back of my mind.

Next, pick one thought.

We’ll never pull this off

Ask yourself what fact, or situation this thought is about. Make that fact completely lacking in drama. In this case, the situation is “My Project Schedule” or better yet “Schedule”.

Now, list out 5 positive thoughts you believe and 5 negative thoughts you believe about your situation or fact. I recommend doing the positives first. Notice how you don’t want to write the negatives after doing the positives.

Positive & Seems True: Our best chance is with a schedule. The schedule doesn’t have to be perfect. I can add stuff to the schedule as we work with it. I’ve done a million schedules and they always help. It’s possible we’ll succeed.

Negative & Seems True: I’m going to fail. I’ve been putting this off. I’m actually just in the same place we often get on a project, needing to understand all the details so we can help ourselves. I’m just a manager trying to do everything. I’m tired of writing down negative thoughts – I want to go write my schedule

I’ve had a lot of practice at this process and you can see in the example that my brain is quickly turning away from the negative and ready to move on. However, for some of you, finding five true and positive thoughts is going to be really hard. Try using – it’s possible, at least or it’s just to pry some positive thoughts out.

Why bother with this?

The reason you’re not taking action isn’t that you’re fundamentally flawed, weak-willed or lazy. Our brains are designed to protect us from harm. Failing at a task that the tribe wants us to do is inherently risky. We could lose our place. We could be out in the snow with the wolves hunting us down. We could die.

Our brains don’t know that we have access to hundreds of tribes on social media. They don’t know that our family isn’t going to toss us out to die if we create a bad project plan. So our brains want us to do what we did yesterday – skip the plan, skip the schedule. After all, we lived, didn’t we?

Getting all this out on paper makes thoughts into objects.

Once you get your thought, find your fact, and list out your positives and negatives, do a quick motivation check. Are you ready to work? If yes, go to it.

If not, then list out how each thought makes you feel and then imagine how you act when you feel that way. Notice the result those actions get you. Do the negatives first this time.

Schedule: I’ve been putting this off. When that thought crosses my mind I literally feel sick to my stomach, which means I feel fear. When I’m afraid, I want to run away, change tasks, cry – basically put it off.

Schedule: I’m going to fail. I feel depressed. When I’m depressed, I eat candy, get a cup of coffee, check my emails. All of those actions actually make me fail.

Schedule: Our best chance is with a schedule. I feel logical when I think it. When I feel logical, I just start listing out project steps. Then I’m closer to being done.

Schedule: I’ve done a million schedules and they always help. I feel hopeful when I think it. When I feel hopeful, I want to finish the schedule. I list out tasks. I finish the schedule

This process makes it very clear what impact your thinking is having on you getting the task done. It also gets your frontal cortex in the game. Once you lay all this out, it’s pretty hard to keep walking around procrastinating. It just doesn’t make any sense. What would happen if you scheduled fifteen minutes to do this process before you started project work you normally put off?

That? Is how I work on stuff without using willpower or habits.

That? Is Good to Know.

If you would like a free 25-minute session – click here. It’s free, it’s on zoom, camera on or camera off. It’s my pleasure

This process takes practice. Helping people through this is what I’ve been trained to do. I’ve helped lots of people change their work habits from unhappy procrastination to revitalized effectiveness. I can help you too.