As you begin to take action toward the fulfillment of your goals and dreams, you must realize that not every action will be perfect.
Not every action will produce the desired result. Not every action will work.
Making mistakes, getting it almost right, and experimenting to see what happens are all part of the process of eventually getting it right.
Thomas Edison is reported to have tried over 2,000 different experiments that failed before he finally got the light bulb to work. He once told a reporter that, from his perspective, he had never failed at all. Inventing the light bulb was just a 2,000-step process. If you can adopt that attitude, then you can be free to take an action, notice what result you get, and then adjust your next actions based on the feedback you have received.
Ready, Fire, Aim!
Don’t be afraid to just jump in and get started moving toward your goals. As long as you pay attention to the feedback you receive, you will make progress. Just getting into the game and firing allows you to correct and refine your aim.
The Most Valuable Question You May Ever Learn
In the 1980s, a multimillionaire businessman taught me a question that radically changed the quality of my life. So what is this magical question that can improve the quality of every relationship you are in, every product you produce, every service you deliver, every meeting you conduct, every class you teach and every transaction you enter into?
Here it is:
“On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the quality of our relationship during the last week?”
Here are a number of variations on the same question that have served me well over the years...
“On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate…
• our service?
• my teaching?
• our product?
• this class/seminar/workshop?
• this meeting?
• our date/vacation?
• our performance?
• this meal?
• my coaching/managing?
• this book/recording/show?
• my parenting/babysitting?
Any answer less than a 10 always gets this follow-up question:
“What would it take to make it a 10?”
This is where the *really* valuable information comes from. Knowing that a person is dissatisfied is not enough. Knowing in detail what will satisfy them gives you the information you need to do whatever it takes to create a winning product, service or relationship.
There Are Two Kinds of Feedback
There are two kinds of feedback you might encounter – negative and positive. We tend to prefer the positive – that is, results, money, praise, promotion, raise, awards, happiness, inner-peace, etc. It feels betters. It tells us we are on course and doing the right thing.
We tend not to like negative feedback – lack of results, little or no money, criticism, poor evaluations, complaints, unhappiness, inner conflict, pain, etc.
However, there is as much useful data in negative feedback as there is in positive feedback. It tells us that we are off course, headed in the wrong direction, doing the wrong thing. This is priceless information!
In fact, it’s so valuable that one of the most useful projects you could undertake is to change how you respond to negative feedback. I like to refer to negative feedback as information for “improvement opportunities.” Here is a place where I can get better.
Ask Yourself for Feedback
In addition to asking others for feedback, you need to ask yourself for feedback, too. More than any other source of feedback, your body will tell you whether or not you are on course or not. When you are relaxed and happy, your body is telling you that you are on track. When you are constantly exhausted, tense, in pain, unhappy and angry, then you are off track.
Take time to listen to what your body is saying to you. Take time to listen to your physical sensations and your feelings. They are sending you important messages. Are you listening?
Remember, Feedback Is Simply Information
You don’t have to take it personally. Just welcome it and use it.
For more on Using Feedback to Your Advantage, review Principle #19 in The Success Principles. It’s one of the most important principles you can apply.
© 2007 Jack Canfield
Are you "stuck" in this area?
Send me your most pressing question about this topic, then join me for our monthly "Ask Jack Canfield" Tele-Clinic! http://www.askjackcanfield.com/
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Jack Canfield, America’s Success Coach, is the founder and co-creator of the billion-dollar book brand Chicken Soup for the Soul and a leading authority on Peak Performance. If you're ready to jump-start your life, make more money, and have more fun and joy in all that you do, get your FREE success tips from Jack Canfield now at: http://www.freesuccessstrategies.com/
Thursday, January 31, 2008
The Most Valuable Question You May Ever Ask
Courage
Here is a little levity on the subject of courage...
Cowardly Lion:
What makes a King out of a slave?
Courage.
What makes the flag on the mast to wave?
Courage.
What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist or the dusky dusk?
What makes the muskrat guard his musk?
Courage.
What makes the Sphinx the 7th Wonder?
Courage.
What makes the dawn come up like THUNDER?!
Courage.
What makes the Hottentot so hot?
What puts the "ape" in ape-ricot?
Whatta they got that I ain't got?
Dorothy & Friends:
Cowardly Lion:
On a more serious note...
The Journey to Your Goals
On a recent cross country flight I looked out over the Rocky Mountains from 30,000 feet and saw hundreds of paths sort of heading towards the summits of the various peaks.
I write "sort of" because looking at these zigzagging paths made it very clear why they are called switchbacks. Those switchbacks occupied my thinking for most of the rest of the flight to Oakland and have been on my mind often since.
It occurred to me that those switchback paths are much like the paths we often take towards our largest, most important goals. We're definitely on a path, but it doesn't always seem direct or in a straight line.
Through my reflection I have found five messages about goal setting - and goal attainment - in the switchback paths.
1. The need for a clearly defined goal. If you are on a mountain path, the goal is pretty clear. You are there because you want to get to the top. In your daily routine how often do you strive to make your goals that clear and obvious?
From the 30,000 perspective you probably can see yourself progressing towards your goal, but sometimes on the path it's hard to see. Keeping your goal clearly in front of you is critical to your attitude and aids in maintaining your persistence and belief.
2. Switchbacks allow you to get started. Have you ever faced a mountain of a goal and the steps towards it seemed hard, steep and full of risks? While boldness is important, often at the beginning of a journey, you just need to get started; to build some momentum and confidence.
Taking a winding path may not be the most direct route, but it's one of the best ways to insure a successful start and finish.
3. Keep your head up. Not only do you need to clearly define your goal, but you must always keep it in sight as well. In any journey, whether walking or moving towards a goal, you must keep your head up - to be alert to dangers and diversions and to keep the goal in sight. Even if the switchbacks make it seem - even momentarily - as if you are moving away from it.
4. Switchbacks allow for ongoing progress. I've hinted at this already, but it bears repeating - the path of the switchback allows for ongoing progress. The path allows for steady consistent progress - which is critical to reaching any goal of importance.
5. Watch for shortcuts. The well worn path is a valuable one to have, but there may be opportunities to skip a switchback. The serious hiker and goal achiever is always looking for a short cut - a path that might be a bit more difficult, but may cut significant time off of the journey.
Yes, moving towards your goals is a journey, but you must always have the destination in mind. If someone dropped a rope from a helicopter, and your goal was to get to the top of the mountain, be willing to grab on!
We must keep moving forward, but always be looking for the big opportunity to shorten our path and reach our goals more quickly.
Obviously, this is written from the perspective of reaching individual goals, and hopefully that perspective has been valuable. However, thinking of these five points is just as important (if not more important) for you as a leader or as part of a team that is trying to reach important and perhaps big goals.
Keeping your focus and enthusiasm for goals as an individual is hard, but keeping a team or organization on track and excited often presents an even larger challenge. Keep these lessons in mind and put them to use for yourself or your team and they will aid you on your path.
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Kevin Eikenberry is a leadership expert and the Chief Potential Officer of The Kevin Eikenberry Group, a learning consulting company that helps Clients reach their potential through a variety of training, consulting and speaking services. To receive a special report on Unleashing Your Potential go to http://www.kevineikenberry.com/uypw/index.asp or call us at (317) 387-1424 or 888.LEARNER.
It's Always Your Choice
How to Get Lucky!
I stumbled across a blog today at http://www.thesimpledollar.com/ and read a post of a review of the book Never Wrestle With A Pig by Mark McCormack. The author of the blog highlighted some of the points the book made, but I want to mention just one that is vitally important. In the first chapter of the book, Give Yourself A Reality Check, McCormack talks of our need to realize that you have to work hard to make it happen.
I agree 100% with that point. People who think that it is easy for someone else to succeed and it should be easy for them as well don't really know what they are talking about. They aren't privy to the years of experience that built up the skills that makes what they are doing now look easy. They aren't privy to the time they spent cultivating relationships, studying and gaining essential knowledge, establishing habits of setting goals and achieving them, becoming proficient in establishing effective plans that lead to successful accomplishments, etc. We just sit back and classify them as "lucky" and wish we could be lucky just like them.
~ Seneca
One of the points McCormack makes that I want here is that if you're relying on luck to carry you through something, it probably won't work! You need to put all your effort into making yourself "luck proof" just as these "lucky" people have done. Consistent winners are those who have done everything they can to stack the odds in their favor. They plan and prepare and then do absolutely EVERYTHING in their power to bring about favorable results.
~ Thomas Jefferson
Whatever it is that you want in life, plan for it, prepare for it, persistently pursue it and you, too, can get lucky!
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
STING Procrastination
When you hear the word "sting", don't you get an unpleasant feeling? You probably thought of a bumble bee, a wasp or even a scorpion. Who in their right mind really wants to get stung? Nobody! And procrastination is no different. In fact, if you STING procrastination enough times, it probably won't hang around you any more. Won't that be nice! So let me tell you how to do it:
S - Select one task.
Select one task that you have been putting off. It could be something as simple as cleaning the kitchen or as complex as doing your taxes. Break it down and select one small piece of it if it is a large or complicated task and just focus on that for now.
T - Time yourself.
Set a time limit to work on the task. I recommend one hour for adults and 15 to 30 minutes for children depending on their age and attention span. Use a kitchen timer so you don't have to watch the clock.
I - Ignore everything else.
Don't answer the phone or check your e-mail during this time. Focus only on what needs to get done and don't give in to tempting distractions.
N - No breaks.
Work straight through to keep the momentum going. Keep on pushing yourself right up until the timer goes off or the task is completed.
G - Give yourself a reward.
Once the timer goes off, you are done whether the task is fully completed or not. The object wasn't so much to get everything done in this amount of time, but to overcome the procrastination and start making progress. If you do that, you win! And every winner deserves to be rewarded for their efforts. For more on this topic, and even some suggestions of rewards, see my Reward Yourself! posting.
That is how you STING procrastination!
S - Select one task.
T - Time yourself.
I - Ignore everything else.
N - No breaks.
G - Give yourself a reward.
If you practice this every day, procrastination will be but a distant, unpleasant memory!
How Do You Live?
While I was sick a couple of weeks ago, I watched a lot of movies because I really wasn't up to anything else. In one of the movies, I heard a quote that has always struck me as comical, but I think it aptly describes how many of us tend to live our lives.
Many of us live our lives with no greater purpose than to earn enough money to pay our bills. We get up in the morning, chase the almighty dollar all day long, collapse in front of our T.V. for several hours at the end of the day, go to bed, and then repeat the cycle all over again the next day. Very few of us live our lives on purpose. And so we readily accept whatever purpose is handed to us.
Start living your life instead of just going through the motions. And, if you are going to live your life, make it a life worth living! Instead of accepting whatever it is that life gives you, decide what you will have and go get it!
What is it that brings you the most joy and fulfillment in your life?
Are you doing it?
What do you want to be remembered for?
Are you accomplishing it?
Celebrate 2008! is my effort to inspire people to take action in their lives by setting goals to achieve the things they really want to achieve in their lives and stick with those goals until it happens. If you haven't set a goal or a resolution this year, please do so now. Do not go to your grave with your song unsung. None of us know how long we have to live, to breathe and to achieve so start today!
