New Year, New You?

- by Jaime Willis

"When you are finished changing, you're finished." - Benjamin Franklin

I was browsing through my facebook feed the other day and one of my friends had written this as her status update, "No New Year's Resolutions for me - I like me just the way I am."

First, I applaud my friend for her healthy self image - that's a huge accomplishment that many of us struggle our whole lives with. But, I think she may have missed the point of New Year's resolutions. Resolutions don't have to be about dissatisfaction with your life, although a lot of common resolutions certainly are: losing weight, quitting smoking, etc.

Resolutions can also be goals that help you continue to grow and learn. In 2011, I am resolving to visit two countries and two U.S. States I've never been to before. That goal is not about any deficiency in my life, it's about experiencing new things and seeing the world, one of my own personal core values.

The New Year is a great time to reflect on both what you don't want in your life (extra weight) and where you do want to go in your life (e.g. travel, school, promotion, family, etc.)

I hope you take the time in the coming days to reflect on both! And, if you want help in creating or executing your goals, sign up for our New Year's Resolution Workshop Extravaganza on January 8th in downtown DC for just $20. Sign up now!

Goal Survivor

- by Jaime Willis

Good Morning Achievers! I'm posting this from gorgeous Italy where I am visiting my best friend who moved here earlier this year. If you follow our twitter feed or facebook page, you'll know I'm making goals happen this week. I enjoyed a quick visit to Madrid, checking another city off of my goal list, and we are leaving tomorrow for Greece, so I'll be able to check yet another city off my list before the week is out. Anyway, on to my regular posting...

Recently, I participated in a professional development day at work. One of the teamwork exercises we were tasked with is probably familiar to many of you--we were asked to prioritize a short inventory of things that would aid us in surviving after a winter plane crash in the Canadian Arctic.* After ranking the items on our own, we were given a short period of time to work as a team to create a team ranking of the same 15 items. Finally, the facilitator would give us the rankings assigned to the items by survivalist experts and we could compare both our individual and team scores to those of the experts.

*If you are interested in doing this activity first on your own, feel free to click on this link and scroll down to the "Problem Solving" section of that page.

As soon as we were able to begin our individual rankings, I began by creating my survival goal and then ranked the items as they impacted my ability to reach that goal. I figured that my best chance for survival was to be alive when the rescuers showed up, so I prioritized the items in favor of making camp -- having sufficient heat and shelter to combat hypothermia, having access to clean water and the ability to find/cook food, and finally the ability to signal to rescuers. Once I decided to make camp and prioritized the greatest risks of death, I was ready to rank my items.

When our team began talking through the rankings, I shared my strategy and encouraged the group to agree on a survival goal and then prioritize items from there. Although several members of my group initially agreed, many members were really focused on ensuring that their personal top items received top ranking in the team activity. Which is why, at the end of our discussion, snowshoes and rope were ranked higher than anything else on the list.

Unsurprisingly, our team did not fair well against the survival experts. What was surprising was that our team's score was still better than all but three (including mine--yay!) of our teams individual ranking scores. I think survival was truly won or lost not by the items themselves, but by the defined goal or lack thereof by the players.

How can you expect to succeed when you haven't properly defined what success looks like? You can define your success by following a few simple steps:

1) Define your core values and know your skill-set. In the above exercise, it was amazing how many of my colleagues flippantly stated that they would "probably die" if they were really attempting to survive a plane crash. Not me. "Choose Life" is a very strong core value of mine and I strategized accordingly. At the same time, however, I knew that hiking and orienteering are not my strong suit, so I quickly discarded the option of hiking out and opted to create a camp while waiting for rescue.

2) Define your goal and figure out what is required to make that goal happen. For me, the defined goal was to "survive the plane crash until rescued by eliminating as many high risks of death as possible." I knew that being cold and wet would likely kill me first, so heat/shelter was my top priority. After that, a clean water supply was critical to avoiding deadly dehydration. Then, access to some form of food would allow me to survive the weeks and even months until rescue was possible. Lastly, in the event that rescue arrived, I figured that having ways to signal my precise location would aid rescuers.

3) Choose tasks and resources that fit your goal requirements. If I were given additional time on the above activity, I would have begun outlining my own order of operations with the resources I'd chosen. First, I'd build a fire and get dry & warm. Then, I'd build a shelter to ensure that I could stay dry and warm long-term. Only after those two tasks were complete would I worry about water and food, and eventually signally for help.

I hope you can use this information to begin road-mapping your own goal survival today!

Is it a Dream or Is It a Goal?

- by Matt Leedham

“Vision without execution is hallucination.” – Albert Einstein

Albert speaks the truth although it may seem a little harsh to the un-indoctrinated. A lot of us think we have big goals in life, but are they really goals? Or are they dreams? And what’s the difference?

Dreams are lovely to think about. In many ways, it’s your mind’s way of playing. Set it loose and your mind will wander aimlessly most of the time, or down some specific path of some idea or fantasy you have about the future. Day-dreaming about what could be isn’t a bad thing at all and certainly has its place in developing big plans for our lives.

But a dream is not a goal. Goals can be executed. Dreams may come true.

How do you turn a dream into a goal so that it actually happens? Start with defining the dream.

Dreams tend to be vague and open-ended. This happens because our creative mind can’t be bothered with the details at the time. It’s also scary to commit to something so grand. Dreams tend to sound like this…
1. I want to start a business someday.
2. I want to lose weight.
3. I want to own a home.
4. I want to travel the world.
5. I want to spend more time with family and friends.
6. I want to write a book.


Let’s define one of these dreams. I am passionate about travel, so we’ll start there.

Dream: I want to travel the world.

Exercise: Fast forward your life 5 years from now and assume the dream had come true. What happened, what did it look like? What would have to happen, specifically, for you to look back and say, “yep, that definitely happened…I traveled the world.” Be as specific as possible – paint the picture. Where did you go? How much time did it take? How many countries/cities did you visit? Was it one big 6-month trip, or 10 trips taken twice a year for 5 years? Were you with someone while traveling? Did you meet people, or try new things? What exactly would you have to do to feel like you reached this vision?

Now, let’s design a goal based on the definition you just gave this dream.

Here’s an example: "I will travel to 10 countries on a least 4 continents by September 2015 and meet at least one person in each country that I stay in touch with via FaceBook, email, or Skype."

Now that’s a goal! How realistic it is depends on you. Variables include your priorities (note: see our post on personal values), your finances, your family, etc. If the sample goal is not realistic for you the way it is defined above, then redefine it to fit your circumstances.

Don’t just dream it, achieve it!