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Don’t make a “Goal” instead make a “Promise”

January 15, 2012 By

This is the time of year that many of us start to think about ‘setting goals’.

I try to pull out my “Goal Plan” (a sheet of paper I wrote them on) to see where I am on their achievement on a regular basis.

I end up ‘hitting’ some and not others.

I started to give this more thought and study this month in anticipation of the New Year (Resolution). I came across a Bill Bateman video on iLG where he was talking about his “10 Step Goal Setting” process. It was all really good information – much that I had already learned, but it was good to revisit. He said ‘one thing’ that completely changed the way I’m looking at my personal and business ‘goal setting’.

He said to replace the word ‘Goal‘ with the word ‘Promise‘ when we go about this task. He offered up a study by Harvard that indicated that people “miss their Goals” 76% of the time – but “achieve their Promises” 98% – and that got me thinking about how my own mind interprets the difference between the two words.

First off, I am rare to make ‘Promises’ – I completely understand on a very “Conscious‘ level what that means and I always remember both Mom and Dad teaching ‘how you never make Promises you can’t keep’. Which explains on my subconscious level how I feel about this same word… It is to be taken very seriously!!!

As to ‘Goals’ – for some reason I seem to have an entirely different internal perspective about that word. I’ve made them most my life and if I did not achieve them I would refine either the goal or the time frame and simply forgive myself – or hit a mulligan (do it over).

This year I intend to do this one simply thing; I intend to create my ‘Promise Plan’ for 2009 and in it I intend to make some real ‘Promises’ on what I ‘will do’ both Personally and Business wise this coming year. So far the list is already much shorter as it forces me to ‘filter’ things better and interestingly it also ended up covering the ‘most’ important things.

Maybe this will help you as well. Best to you and yours in 2009 – I ‘Promise’ :)
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The Golden (Platinum) Rule = The Social Networking Rule

January 14, 2012 By

We speak of it and we try to live by it – “treat others as you would like to be treated.”

To me it’s the main rule one needs to follow within Social Networking.

The Golden Rule was a common principle in ancient Greek philosophy.

A few examples:

“Do not to your neighbor what you would take ill from him.” (Pittacus)

“Avoid doing what you would blame others for doing.” (Thales)

“What you wish your neighbors to be to you, such be also to them.” (Sextus the Pythagorean)

“Do not do to others what would anger you if done to you by others.” (Isocrates)

“What thou avoidest suffering thyself seek not to impose on others.” (Epictetus)

A couple snippets from different world views…

Christianity:

Matthew 7:12
“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”

Luke 6:31
“Just as you want others to do for you, do the same for them.”

Judaism:

“That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.”

Buddhism:

“One who, while himself seeking happiness, oppresses with violence other
beings who also desire happiness, will not attain happiness hereafter.”

Confucius:

“Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself.”

Hinduism:

“That man who regards all creatures as his own self, and behaves towards them as towards his own self, laying aside the rod of chastisement and completely subjugating his wrath, succeeds in attaining to happiness.”

Islam:

“Woe to those . . . who, when they have to receive by measure from men, exact full measure, but when they have to give by measure or weight to men, give less than due”

Taoism:

“Regard your neighbor’s gain as your own gain, and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss.”

The “The Platinum Rule” adds a nice addition to the “Golden Rule”…

“The golden rule is a good standard which is further improved by doing unto others, wherever possible, as they want to be done by.”

You’ll see lot’s of “Top 10 Rules of Social Networking” – pick any of the above and I think you’ll have it covered.
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Brain Dump and beyond

January 14, 2012 By

New Year can be an exciting time. New beginnings, fresh starts, everything seems possible. But, it can also be stressful. All those goals and resolutions. The amount of work required to achieve them can seem insurmountable and it feels like no amount of positive thinking is going to get you on the right track. That’s usually when procrastination sets in. So what’s the solution?

This was exactly the topic of conversation I had with a client last week. How much needed to be done, what he wanted to achieve, how was he going to get there, who was going to help him; oh, and let’s not forget family obligations, church responsibilities, his own health and wellness. His level of whelm was definitely over the top.

So how do you get back to a place where you can see the clearing on the other side of that forest full of trees?

Brain Dump

Step 1 – We sat down with a pad of paper and wrote down every task, goal, action, chore, duty, dream … everything that was in his head. It didn’t matter if it was related to business or personal life, if it was realistic or a fantasy, all that mattered was getting it out of his head and onto paper.

And Beyond

Step 2 – The first sorting: We separated the list into two lists – personal and business.

Since I get paid to help business owners and professionals work more efficiently, we concentrated on his business list.

Step 3 – The second sorting: We determined what tasks were absolutely top priority.
Then, we separated the top priority list into what he needed to do himself and what could be delegated to others.

Step 4 – Short term or long term: Of the things he needed to do himself, what could be done quickly and crossed off the list within the next day or two and what required efforts over a period of time.

Step 5 – Delegation: We went through the same process with everything on the “Delegate” list, first prioritizing and then assigning different tasks to different people. The few tasks where there wasn’t a clear candidate to whom to delegate were transferred to a different list. Nothing on that list could be a top priority task.

Now that we had a clear idea of what needed to be accomplished, who would get it done and by when, we were able to turn our attention to top of the long term list, plucked the first project off the top of the list and created a mind map.

Mind mapping … to be continued.
Everyone’s Blog Posts – 609 Local Business Networking

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