small goals

April 26, 2018

What Is The Next Baby Step To Take?

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Whether it’s a goal you have set yourself, a challenge the team has in front of them, a problem you need to solve, or you are trying to help someone else move forwards the ability to move forwards towards the desired state is something that is required. The less time we spend paralysed or procrastinating the better when it comes to continually achieving high performance both professionally and personally.

Another habit we can develop is to identify how far we are away from our desired result and use a timeline technique to ascertain how big the gap is. Let’s imagine your ideal outcome or the place where you would feel happy with a situation is 10/10. Ask the question where are you now? on the scale from 1-10  with 10 being the perfect result or outcome you are working towards e.g. if you scored yourself 5 then you are halfway along to being in the place you want to be or accomplishing the goal you have set yourself.

Then ask yourself the question – what have I done to get myself this far e.g. off level 0. What do I need to do more of to move myself up the scale? Normally we have made some progress, rarely are you starting for level zero.

The next baby step to take is to imagine where the next level up would be i.e. if you are currently rating yourself as a 5 on the scale what action would you need to take to get yourself to a 6. By taking this approach we are trying to break down a big challenge or goal into baby steps of action or bite sized chunks (chunking is a commonly used NLP – Neuro Linguistic Programming methodology)

When you have identified what you need to do to take you to the next level upwards and more towards your destination then ask yourself whether you need anyone’s expertise or assistance to get there? Whether it’s simply being disciplined to set aside time to work on the action, whether there is any element of fear of failure or loosing face standing in your way. What is stopping you take that next action step and what do you need to remove that barrier.

This process then needs to be circled around again to achieve the next level up on the scale. Simply having this diagrammatically drawn in your daily notebook could help remind you of what action you need to take to take small baby step action steps to reach your ultimate destination.

What action could you take today or within a week to move you up one or two levels?

 

Sandra works as a professional coach for both businesses and private clients. For more information look at www.sandrawebbercoaching.com or read through her book Own It available from Amazon  http://amzn.to/2m3l8Vl

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January 6, 2015

A Different Approach

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Over the Christmas and New Year Period the annual discussions always include the topic of New Years Resolutions and goals. This sparked a debate in our circle about the difference between setting a goal and making a resolution. Does it matter that if you set a goal there is an end point so what happens when you get there or if you don’t achieve it. There is an interesting argument that we should set resolutions to embed new habits at New Year (or indeed this can be done at any time in the year) instead of a more goal setting approach. This was inspired by having also recently read a book “The Happiness Project ” http://www.gretchenrubin.com/

Having reflected on this idea we are trying a new concept this year. Each month identify some new habits that you want to embed and an overall theme for the month. E.G January could be “Clean out “month with four new habits for the month 1) Eat healthy clean food 2) Drink 4 large glasses of hot or cold water or herbal tea each day 3) Clear out a bit of clutter each day either a drawer, a closet, a part of the office 4) Attempt 10 mins meditation. So looking across these 4 initial habits each day both the physical body, the environment and the mind is hopefully being de-cluttered. A daily checklist is in the diary to record progress each day by either a tick or cross.

The same approach will be used for each of the remaining 12 months with the hope that some of the new habits will prove more beneficial than others and as a result will be embedded into lifestyle permanentl

Watch this space for future themes and process evaluation comments.

Current status on day 5 of 2015 is estimated at 50%

December 2, 2013

December – Look forward or Look Back?

goalimageIts a strange month December. Should we be making a last minute attempt to achieve all those goals we set in January or should we forget those and start thinking towards 2014 and resetting some more challenges?

Also everyone is so busy the whole month of December could pass buy quickly, with the festive preparations and social gatherings that no progress is made on goal achievement.

Why not set some small challenges for December?

Look at that “ to do list”. What has been on there for a long time? Perhaps December is the time to tackle those tasks or goals that are fairly simple to tick off the list but just need some dedicated focus. Why wait until January?

Just think of that sense of achievement you get when something you have been meaning to do for ages gets accomplished and ticked off the list.

Need a christmas pressent idea how about http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&ved=0CEgQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.co.uk%2FLife-Without-Limits-Wellington-Autobiography-ebook%2Fdp%2FB005EM8NQ2&ei=Y4-cUpLJI-SJ7AahrYH4Cw&usg=AFQjCNFW0hVQNtSKuNAL62iKpl7gULkqbg

After listening to Chrissie give a talk at Bristol University last Monday we were all reminded what can be accomplished in a very short space of time.