In my last post I talked about the thrill of finally doing something I’d wanted to do for years, and introduced Heidi Halvorson’s book Succeed as part of why I was able to do this. Today I’m sharing some of the concepts, hoping that you can use some of these treasures to get yourself where you want to be.
So what have I used to get going on this goal I’ve been putting off for so long?
I used two main bodies of knowledge that I’ve learned about over the years: positive psychology, especially strengths principles, and goals research, from Heidi’s course and book.
1. I used my top strengths of Appreciation of Beauty & Excellence, Creativity, Curiosity, and Bravery. I also used determination, will power, attention to detail, optimism, and persistence.
In addition, I took the following steps from my learning on goal attainment:
2. I was SPECIFIC in what I wanted to do: create and post a blog. This goal was CHALLENGING but not unrealistic.
3. I envisioned the final goal – a blog post, the first of many – but even more importantly, I ENVISIONED DOING WHAT IT TAKES TO CREATE IT.
4. I thought about WHY I wanted to blog, which I listed above.
5. I thought about WHAT it took to get there: brainstorming ideas, free writing, creating a draft, revising it, and posting it to my blogsite.
6. One of the most important things I did was to PLAN WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, AND HOW I was going to accomplish this.
7. I used triggers to tap my unconscious, both an item on my to do list and a task (in Microsoft Outlook) that popped up at intervals to remind me.
8. I focused on GETTING BETTER rather than BEING GOOD: I furloughed my perfectionism, and concentrated on starting where and as I am and learning as I go.
9. I thought about PROMOTION – how great I would feel to achieve this goal (it doesn’t matter how small the goal, or how easy for others: we deserve to celebrate our success). I also thought about PREVENTION – how lousy I would feel if I failed to do this yet again, how embarrassed to report to my accountability buddy and my mentor and my coach and my colleagues that I had not been able to do even one blog post. Both these techniques are very powerful.
There are more techniques, but that’s enough for now. I will be explaining and expanding on these in the future.
1. Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals, Heidi Grant Halvorson, Ph.D., Hudson Street Press, January 2011
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