Have you got a clear idea of your top priorities and how well you are currently achieving them? If not use “Know where the effort is needed” to identify them first. Here you will identify your top 8 priorities and assess how well you are achieving them against your view on what 10/10 would look like if you were fully achieving them from your perspective.
From the picture you have drawn identify which priority you would like to focus on first. To chose the focus you can order them:
- From most import to least important.
- From biggest impact to least impact.
- From most achieved to least achieved (10/10 scale)
- Gut feeling needs work
- What you feel you need the most
- Change would create the biggest positive effect on your life
- Biggest pillar holding everything up
There’s is no specific direction here. It is totally individual as to where you would like to start. Just be clear with yourself which priority and your reason for choosing it. That way you can remind yourself of the motivation and also if you need to re-evaluate the situation you can draw on the detail and your reasoning for the initial decision.
Great! So now we have a priority. Time to coach yourself using the basic GROW model – Goal, Reality, Options, Way Forward.
#1 Goal
You already have an idea of what 10/10 looks like for this priority. However, this may be a huge leap to get there. So lets make it achievable! On the first priority focus blog I used a fitness example (look back for ideas/example). Here I’ll do one for work. My 10/10 goal would be to achieve Senior Ambassador for Neals Yard Remedies in 5 years, with a team that I truly support to help them thrive and to achieve their individual goals and aspirations, whilst sharing the amazing products with my clients to support their physical, mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing towards being healthier, happier and more successful in life. I believe achieving this role I can truly make a difference in the world not only environmentally but also to individuals and the relationships they have in life which is key to happiness. One key motivation for me is to build wonderful relationships with my “tribe” – people who share and align with similar values and connect with me for me. I believe Dandelion Skies and Neals Yard will connect me with my tribe and I’m excited!
Whilst I have made this a SMART goal, I would like to have a short term goal to focus on now. Having milestones to get to your 10/10 is important for multiple reasons:
It keeps your focus – working out the steps to get there helps to focus you on the right track.
Learn and enjoy the journey – the final destination may change from your experience, situation, growth and learning. This can get lost and confused without identifying steps to reach them.
Keeps motivation – having something tangible that you can almost grab right in front of you keeps motivation and momentum. Sometimes its hard to stay focussed on long term goals when they appear to be down the road, round the corner, on a bus to the airport and half way round the world before you are going to get there!
Celebrate the wins – its good to keep celebrating the small wins, every step forward to achieving your ultimate goals is a win. Never underestimate this!
In business we talk about SMART goals. So lets look at step by step what a SMART goal can look like. This is the first milestone towards Senior Ambassador.
- Specific – I want to achieve Neals Yard Team Leader
- Measureable – I achieve promotion when I have 4 active consultants, 2000 team points and 100 personal points
- Achievable – I really starting to connect with more people from my tribe, I have 3 active consultants. My passion and joy from the products appears infectious and my reach to helping people find what they need and want is increasing so I already have enough personal points
- Realistic – I achieved over half the team points myself last month, my business coaching is supporting my team to thrive, 4 more people are interested in joining my team. It isn’t a huge leap now to achieve this.
- Time bound – I want to achieve this promotion by the end of August 2020.
The main aim here is to identify what success will look like
#2 Reality
Now we look at where we are right now. What is the current reality?
- What is happening now?
- Who is involved (directly, indirectly)?
- When things are going badly on this issue, what happens to you?
- What happens to others involved directly?
- What would someone else say to you about this situation?
- What have you done so far?
- What results did that produce?
- What is missing in the situation?
- What do you have that you are not using?
- What is holding you back?
- What is really going on (intuition)?
- What barriers are their to you being successful?
- Do you have an personal or external resistance?
Explore these questions to get a really good grasp of your start point.
#3 Options
This is your chance to get creative, try not to put any perceived or real barriers on yourself. Free your imagination to come up with the biggest to you can to be able to achieve your goal, no restraints. This can be quite hard as naturally we put rules on our thinking from beliefs and judgements, using an open minded friend or coach here really can help – or have that awareness of self to notice if you have created rules that may not actually have to exist!
- What options do you have?
- What else could you do?
- What if….? (E.g. unlimited time, power, money etc – shift your mindset)
- Would you like another suggestion?
- If you could think of another option, what would it be?
- What are the benefits and costs of each?
- What could eliminate any resistance or barriers you’ve identified?
On a scale of 1-10 rate your interest in each option
#4 Way Forward
Now you can make the choice of which option to go with. Doing the previous step will hopefully have broadened your perspective on the possibilities of the situation so that…
….if the chosen way forward doesn’t survive first contact, you have many options to get back on track, whilst considering what you have learnt when choosing the new option.
- Which option or options do you choose?
- To what extent does this meet your priority, 10/10 expectation and SMART first step goal?
- Who needs to know what your plans are?
- What support do you need from whom?
- What will you do to obtain that support and when?
- What could you do to support you?
- What could I do to support you?
What commitment on a scale of 1-10 do you have to taking these agreed actions?
Congratulations! You now have a plan to take the next step forward to being closer to achieving your expectations on one of your priorities! Well done! You can repeat this process on any goals and priorities to gain focus and understanding so you can work smarter not harder and put your efforts where it matters most to you!
Have the courage to try, the confidence to fail, and the commitment to keep going!
Action Architects 