Flagging Yourself for Success

-By Jaime Willis

I recently read an article about a great student intervention plan a teacher implemented in her classroom last year called "Flagged for Success."

As an 11th grade English teacher, I used to get frustrated at interim time because I would go through my grade book, calculate the grades, and realize for the first time that a student was struggling. By then, five weeks into the nine-week marking period, it was almost too late for me to intervene. The students who struggled spectacularly were easy to spot, but it always distressed me to realize that other students were also slipping through the cracks.
 ...
So I looked at how I tracked student progress to see how I could sift through all the information and turn it into early warning signals that would enable me to intervene in time. I wanted various objective flags that would enable me to consistently give all my students the support they needed. For example, I decided that any student who earned less than 75 percent or missed more than one-fourth of the questions on a quiz would need additional support. Once a student triggered a red flag, he or she would immediately go into the intervention cycle and receive progressively more intensive interventions until he or she moved above my mastery thresholds. Once a student was back on the path, that student could exit the intervention cycle.

What I love about Robyn's plan is that she picked a target to flag students far before they were failing her class and had a series of interventions in place to immediately begin working with her students to ensure they stayed about her 'red flag' line.

If you read the entire article linked above, you'll read how her intervention system worked on three different students in her classroom that year -- very cool results!

Robyn gives some tips for establishing red flags:

Red flags should be unambiguous.  You don't want to have to make a 'game time' decision of what a red flag is -- you want to be able to decide quickly when a red flag has been triggered.


Red flags should be hard to ignore. Established a sign that is hard to miss.


Red flags should trigger action. Once you see a red flag, you should not have to figure out what steps you are going to take next, but have interventions already in mind to get back on track.

For any goal we are working on, wouldn't it be great to have already defined some "red flags" for success?  Although this is a GREAT system for the classroom, I can see it used in all kinds of goals.

For example, what would a Red Flag of Success be for your weight loss goal?

One red flag for me is when I start wearing the "fat" jeans -- the jeans I go to when my regular jeans start to get snug.  Wearing the "fat" jeans is a clear signal to me that I am off track on my weight loss goals.  My intervention could be something like eating a go-to "good" meal for my next meal or fitting in 30 minutes of exercise that day, or starting up my food journal again.

How could you Red Flag your own goals for success? 

Good Things

By Jaime WIllis

"Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are good is like expecting the bull not to charge you because you are a vegetarian." -Dennis Wholey

If there is a "downside" to being an optimist, it's this -- I am really and truly shocked when "bad" things happen.  If I buy a lottery ticket, I really believe, despite the odds, that I am going to be the one to win.  I believe that if I want something bad enough, it'll happen.

And while this optimism and its partner-in-crime, persistence, have done some amazing work in my life, it's not a foolproof thing.  "Good" things don't always happen to good people.  Life is not always fair. 

This week, I had the opportunity to experience that firsthand, and I want to share with you today why I am grateful for the disappointment. 

On Monday morning, I found out that the Good Thing that I had been waiting for wasn't going to happen.  I was really sad -- I wanted the Good Thing so much.  I did everything I could to ensure the Good Thing was mine.  But, I still didn't get the Good Thing I wanted.  

Then, I got a little angry.  Did someone sabotage my changes of getting the Good Thing?  Was there an anti-Jaime group out there hoping and plotting to ensure the Good Thing would never be given to me?  

Then I realized that I didn't really want to be sad or mad about the loss of the Good Thing.  I wanted to be Jaime -- happy, positive about life, and ready and willing to share my gifts and talents with the world.  So I called my friends and said: "The Good Thing didn't happen and I am disappointed, but I know the Right Thing will work out for me." 

While it would have been cool for the Good Thing to happen, just because it didn't is no reason for me to ruin my week, or even ruin my day.  And there is certainly no need for me to mope around in pity or stomp around in sadness when I have the opportunity to be WHO I really want to be -- just Jaime.  Happy.  Fulfilled.  Ready for the next Good Thing to happen. 

Because sometimes, kids, the Good Thing that you want so badly isn't the Right Thing for you at that time.  Sometimes the Right Thing is disappointment.  Sometimes the Right Thing is loss.  I wrote on my facebook wall earlier this week that "Disappointment is what makes success so sweet.  If you were never let down or bummed out, you'd never really know how great it felt to accomplish something." 

This week, I needed to learn a bit about disappointment.  This week, I needed to learn that the Good Thing not happening to me wasn't my fault, it just was.  This week, I needed to learn that even when I do my best work and put my best foot forward, it still wasn't meant to be.

After hearing about my disappointment, one of my friends said to me, "Whew!! That was close.  This truly means that there is something else really important that you need to be doing! And to think... you almost settled for this."  I *love* this reaction.  It is so positive -- I carried it with me the rest of the week.  

Sometimes, life isn't about right and wrong, good or bad.  Sometimes, life is just about the experience.  By figuring out how to quickly move past my disappointment and back to my "regular" self, I can say that I have honestly had an amazing week this week.  Lots of good things happened and I know the next Good Thing is just around the corner.  

Have a great weekend everyone!  Good Things are waiting for you too!

How to be a Survivor

-By Jaime Willis

Three days ago, Northern Japan was the epicenter of one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded in modern history. The earthquake has sparked continuing shock waves, multiple tsunamis, a volcanic eruption, and the disruption of several Japanese nuclear power plants (the linked article does a great job of explaining why no nuclear holocaust is imminent).

The Japanese are working to rescue survivors, restore major utility service and begin rebuilding. You can help by contributing to the Red Cross Distaster Relief Fund or texting REDCROSS to 90999 to donate $10 to relief efforts.

No one can fully predict or prepare for this magnitude of natural or unnatural disaster. However, if you are blessed to survive the initial disaster, there *are* things you can do to ensure your continued survival. Interestingly, these same aspects are critical to ensuring your success in completing almost any goal as well.

ATTITUDE

More important than any other single thing, including food, shelter, and water, is your attitude. I shared with you before that having an optimistic attitude is a critical component of healing from major illness. You need to foster the unwavering belief that you WILL survive.

In the bestselling book, Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand writes a biographical account of Louis Zamperini's life as an Olympic track athlete and World War II Survivor. At one point during the war, Zamperini's airplane is downed over the Pacific Ocean; he and two others, Francis "Mac" McNamera, and Russell Allen "Phil" Phillips, survived the crash and boarded life boats, awaiting rescue. The men ended up floating 47 days on the ocean without food, water, or shelter from the sun before landing on an atoll in the Marshall Islands two thousand miles away from their plane crash. Only Louie and Phil survived the trip. As Hillenbrand writes,

"Though all three men faced the same hardship, their differing perceptions of it appeared to be shaping their fates. Louie and Phil's hope displaced their fear and inspired them to work toward their survival, and each success renewed their physical and emotional vigor. Mac's resignation seemed to paralyze him, and the less he participated in their efforts to survive, the more he slipped. Though he did the least, as the days passed, it was he who faded the most. Louie and Phil's optimism, and Mac's hopelessness, were becoming self-fulfilling."

It is clear to me that having a positive outlook is critical to survival. Beyond survival, I believe that optimism is also the first key to achieving ANY goal.

PREPARATION

My dad was a Boy Scout and Eagle Scout and the Boy Scout motto of "Be(ing) Prepared" is practically tattooed into my skull. One of the reasons that the Japanese are faring as well as they are is that they are prepared for earthquakes and tsunamis. While the death toll in Japan is not final, it will be logarithmically less than the smaller earthquake in Haiti last year. This is in large part to the strict building codes in Japan intended to reduce the impact of tremors as well as a national public education campaign on how to quickly move to safety in the case of tsunami.

Louie and Phil had taken a survival course while they were stationed in Honolulu, and therefore knew, for example, that only the liver of the small sharks they caught were edible. The men would have had a much more difficult time surviving in the raft if they were also battling food poisoning or dysentery.

As you begin any project, spend a big chunk of your time on research. If you are starting a company, learn why some companies fail when others succeed. If you are buying a house, learn about all the pitfalls of financing first. Knowing what could come may help you make better decisions when disaster strikes.

RESOURCEFULNESS

Also known as MacGyver's First Law, resourcefulness means that you can think your way past the challenges that face you, despite limited supplies, support, or aid. MacGyver was famous for fashioning solutions out of meager supplies -- duct tape, a paper clip, and his trusty Swiss Army knife.

Louie and Phil were incredibly resourceful as they drifted across the Pacific ocean. Determined to catch some rainwater after three days without water, Louie used a piece of the canvas case in the life raft to form a bowl to catch the water. They used that same cases as hats when the hot sun beat down on them all day long. They ate fish and birds they learned to catch and continued to catch rainwater to reduce their thirst.

When you encounter a challenge where your resources are limited, think of all the ways you can work with the few supplies you do have.

PERSEVERANCE

Perseverance means getting to your breaking point and continuing on anyway. You would think that Louie Zamperini was a survivor after managing to live through 47 days at sea. But this was only the beginning of two years of intense physical and mental hardship as Louie was interred in a prisoner of war camp. The fact that Louie entered POW Camp at a skeletal 80 pounds, it is nothing less than a miracle that he managed to hang on for the next two years of small food rations and incredible disease.

When the going gets toughest, you can't think about tomorrow, or even the next hour. Stay focused on getting through each moment and you will make through all the moments you need to in order to survive and succeed.

You can be a survivor and a succeeder. Start with the right attitude, do your research, get resourceful, and don't be afraid of working hard and you'll see success!

Be Gritty

-by Jaime Willis

Angela Lee Duckworth, Ph.D. has spent the last ten years researching achievement and believes “grit” is what ultimately determines success.


In a recent Tedx Talk, she discussed her research of incoming freshman at West Point in order to quantify their ‘grit,’ which she defines as “tenaciously perusing something over the long term.” The survey asked students to respond to questions like “I finish whatever I begin,” “I have overcome setbacks to conquer an important challenge” versus statements like “My interests change from year to year.”

She found that the 96% students who scored in the highest quartile for grit were able to successfully graduate from West Point. In fact, people who scored highest for grit performed better than the students who were in the highest quartile of the “whole candidate score” which takes into account intelligence, physical prowess, and other factors that West Point believes are attributes of the most ‘talented’ students.

What does this mean for your goals? That tenacity, perseverance, and hard work are far more important in determining your ultimate success than any innate intellectual or physical prowess you may possess.

Do not be afraid! Given enough time and practice, success is yours!

Mission Commitment Part II

-By Jaime Willis

"Do or do not. There is no try." - Yoda

As many of you know, I am currently working on a goal to complete fifty 10Ks in 2011.  Today is the last day of January, and I have finished six 10Ks!  I am really happy with my progress and am (not so) secretly hoping to finish this goal much earlier than in December, as I'd originally thought.  But, when people find out I'm running multiple 10Ks a week, they are usually incredulous.  The number one comment I've heard so far from folks is "I couldn't do that." 

WHY NOT?

A 10K is 6.2 miles, and I consider one 'run' if I complete that distance walking, jogging, or running indoors or outdoors on a treadmill, elliptical, crosstrainer, or road all at one time.  To me, the only really challenging part is the "all at one time" rule.  If I got to aggregate my time on cardio machines throughout the week, it would be a lot easier.  But there is no "race" deadline.  I could literally take a three hour stroll and that would count.  So when folks say, "I couldn't do that," I think to myself, "someone needs a lesson on mission commitment." 

Terol Pursell, Sean Feehan, Ryan Darling and Jared Walker lead the pack as they run through pouring rain during a cross country practice Sept. 23, 2010, on north Icon Road, bordering the campus of Northwest Missouri State University. (Darren Whitley/Northwest Missouri State University)

Mission Commitment can be loosely defined as "Relentless pursuit of your goal." I think the real key to mission commitment is being relentless. No matter who or what gets in your way, you will work around or through each challenge to make your goal happen.  If you are not relentless by nature, don't worry.  You can learn it! 

Build your Mission Commitment muscles by:

1) Priming yourself to succeed.  You have to believe achieving your goal is possible to be able to pursue it relentlessly.  Your inner dialogue needs to match what you are trying to do.  As I am going to bed, I talk to myself about what I am going to accomplish the next day.  "I am going to run a 10K tomorrow." When I wake up, I continue priming myself by preparing to run -- getting a gym bag together and taking it with me to work, planning out my schedule so I know when I have to leave work to have enough time to run 10K, etc.  

Pro Tip: You may not actually believe what you are priming yourself to do when you start your goal.  That's ok.  Just keep repeating the 'unbelievable' and eventually, you'll 'fool' yourself into believing!

2) Make it easy to begin.  With my goal, I didn't have to ramp up to the 10K distance because I was already in the gym doing cardio for about that long to begin with.  For me, the 'easy' win was the fact that I wasn't racing.  I am a s-l-o-w runner, and I knew the 10K was going to take me 1 - 1.5 hours each time I did it, more if I was walking.  Since the only rule is that I finish the race, I don't have to worry about how slow I am, any finish is a win! (Of course, now that I am doing this multiple times a week, I'm racing myself, but that just makes it fun for me.) 

Whatever your goal is, you need to make the first few steps stupid-easy to complete so you rack up the wins.  If you are having trouble getting to the gym at all, your first win should literally be to show up to the gym.  No workout requirement, no crazy lifting goals, just show up.  The next time, your goal could be to get at least 10 minutes of exercise in.  Stupid-easy.  Once you start racking up the wins, you WANT to keep winning, and *bam* you have mission commitment.

3) Build in accountability.  There are two easy ways to do this: tell folks what your goal is and partner up with someone who is like-minded.  I posted my goal on this blog and on my personal facebook page. So about 750 of my closest friends know that I am running 10Ks this year.  In itself, that is pretty motivating -- I don't want to be a liar to that many people!  I haven't found anyone who wants to run 10Ks with me a few times a week, but I have found other ways to partner up.  In my first race, I got to 4 miles and felt like quitting.  I knew that I could push through, but needed some motivation.  While I was still running, I texted Matt, and he texted back a couple of cheers that kept me on the elliptical for the entire time.  I also plan on running a few 10K road races with friends, another way to stay accountable.

4) Have a Mantra.  When times are tough, when you feel disheartened and ready to quit, when your accountability partner is nowhere to be found, you have to have something at the ready to keep you limping forward.  In Matt's most recent marathon in Austin, Texas, he hit a wall at mile 17 or so.  He could have quit - plenty of people do.  But he just kept repeating to himself "Don't stop, just keep moving."  Especially in physically challenging circumstances, it is rarely our bodies that will give out first--it's our minds!  Get your mind on 'auto-pilot success' by having a mantra you can repeat over and over again until you get through it.  On a challenging section of one of my runs, I literally repeated "mission commitment" with every step to remind myself of why I was doing this.  On another run, I played Destiny Child's Survivor on repeat for the last 20 minutes of my run.  

"I'm a survivor, I'm not gonna give up, I'm not gon' stop, I'm gonna work harder,

I'm a survivor, I'm gonna make it, I will survive, Keep on survivin'" - Destiny's Child

Whatever your goal, I KNOW you can do it.  Build up your mission commitment muscles and you'll see success in sight! 

Mission Commitment

-by Jaime Willis

"Pike had focused on a goal and would drive forward like a relentless machine. Back in Cole's Ranger days, they had called this mission commitment, and Pike's mission commitment was off the charts."

"The Sentry" by Robert Crais

First things first -- I read. I read a lot. I've been a prototypical nerd pretty much since the pampers stage. What may surprise you, however, is that I read a lot of pop fiction. I'm ok with my 'pop' fiction addiction, and it was reading one of the latest from a favorite author, Robert Crais, that I was inspired to write this post.

Joe Pike is one of the main characters in Crais' book series. His talents as a Marine, an L.A. Police Officer, and former mercenary aid him as he runs a gun shop in LA and co-owns a private investigation firm with his best friend Elvis Cole. Pike is literally a silent partner--he rarely talks and when he does, it's as if he's being charged by the letter. Pike is recognizable as the tall, well-built, brush-cut blond in aviator sunglasses, a sleeveless sweatshirt, and jeans driving a pristine Jeep Cherokee. And, if you didn't notice before now, you'll likely also remember him for the two bright red arrow tattoos on the outside of each arm that point forward. Forward is the only direction Joe Pike knows. (Since I can't post a picture of a fictional character, here's a pic of WWE superstar John Cena, also a former Marine. Imagine him with sunglasses and red tattoos, and without the WWE trashtalk and the "jazz hands" bit, and you've got Joe Pike.)

Even though he's fictional, Joe Pike's relentless pursuit of his goals is inspiring to me. When I read the quote I excerpted at the top of the page in Crais's latest book, I actually stopped reading to digest that a bit.

"Pike's mission commitment was off the charts."

I thought to myself, I wonder where my mission commitment is on the charts? When I am pursuing a goal, am I doing so relentlessly or haphazardly and half-heartedly? Am I, like Joe Pike, constantly moving forward?

For those of you who would rather be inspired by a real life hero, look no further than Carl Brashear, the first African American master diver in the Navy, and the inspiration for the movie Men of Honor starring Cuba Gooding, Jr. When Brashear was injured on the job, his injury should have permanently derailed his goal of becoming a master diver. But Brashear's mission commitment was so high, he chose to get his leg amputated and begin vigorously training to get reinstated to full active duty. In addition to being the first African American master diver, Brashear was the first amputee to return to full active duty as a Navy Diver.

Folks who are successful are frequently so at the cost of a lot of other things. Olympic gymnasts forgo 'normal childhood' activities to spend hours a day training in their sports. Bestselling authors got through hundreds of manuscript rejections before becoming an 'overnight success.' Actor Will Smith talks about his mission commitment when he says he is not afraid to "die on the treadmill." Brashear chose his goal to become an Navy diver over keeping his leg--that's mission commitment in the extreme!

The relentless pursuit of your goal in spite of any and every obstacle is mission commitment. Take a look at what you are trying to accomplish and ask yourself how committed you are to your mission. My guess is there is a one-to-one correlation between your level of commitment and your odds of success.

Is Your Goal Really Your Goal?

- by Jaime Willis

"I want to be a billionaire so freaking bad," sings Travie McCoy in a very catchy radio tune.

Lots of us have lofty dreams like this, right? I want to be a millionaire. I want to own a Lear Jet. I want to get into Harvard Med School. I want to win an Oscar. I want to be on the Oprah show.

What I find fascinating is that very few of us ask ourselves WHY we want to have those things. When you drill down beyond the fluffy exterior of your dream to its core, you may be surprised at what you find.

Travie McCoy, for example, goes onto sing that he would use his billions to help Katrina victims, the hungry, and the less fortunate. The thing is, does McCoy have to have billions to do those things? Absolutely not! He could be helping rebuild New Orleans and feed the poor right now.

Back when I was teaching law school admissions test preparation, I actually spent a fair amount of time convincing my students *not* to go to law school. Not because law school is an inherently bad goal, but it just wasn't the right goal for them--they were doing it to make their parents happy, or to delay "real life" or because they were hoping to become rich (law school really isn't the road to wealth for most graduates anymore, sorry to burst your bubble).

The same principle applies to people who are obsessed with losing to a certain number on the scale. It's not the number that you are really aiming for--it's the feeling you get when you feel strong, healthy, and sexy, right?

When you are trying to figure out what goal(s) you are striving for, ask yourself what your motivation is for getting to that goal.

Is there any other way to get there? For example, "I want to get a law degree to help refugees gain asylum in the United States." Do you have to have the law degree to work for a non-profit or NGO that does just that?

Is your goal a goal or a means to another end? For example, "I want to be rich so I can travel more." Can't you figure out a way to travel without having to be "wealthy" first?

Don't limit your success by too narrowly defining what success looks like!