Earn your Stripes with Best Zebrra
By Bernard Chanliau, Thursday 18 September, 2008
Lorna McDowell's Recipe for Assuring Peak PotentialWith torrential rain and daily talk of economic doom and gloom, staying motivated can be a challenge. Now more than ever is the time for positivity, resilience and lateral thinking to overcome obstacles - throughout history some of the greatest potential has come out of the toughest times when we are forced to be resourceful.
Setting goals is relatively easy if we follow tried and tested formulas. From the GROW Model to SMART goals, deciding what we want and when we want it is relatively easy.
However, the real challenge is sticking to the goals and seeing them through to fruition. Change is not a straight line of improvement, it's a yellow brick road with potholes, ring roads, dead ends, fairy castles, dungeons, caverns, floods, traffic lights, bridges, tight ropes, swings and roundabouts.
So staying on track is the name of the game and managing the frustrations and rise and fall of emotions and motivations as you go.
Here is my own tried and tested formula for success:
The Best Zebrra
Belief. Belief in yourself and the path of your goal is easy when all is going your way, but less forthright when you feel like you're well and truly stuck in a pothole, or that your road is deserted. However, there's much happening even when we can't see it - like seeds growing under the soil that will later bloom into luscious forests. And sometimes we have to just listen to our gut, believe in it and follow it, even with the evidence seems to suggest otherwise. This 'blind faith' is the overriding success attribute of people that achieve goals - the ability to hold the vision even when others don't. Like tuning a radio, keep your frequencies clear and believe in yourself and your dream.
Experimentation. If you always aim for perfection, you may never buck up the courage to get started, or may lose faith by pre-judging yourself and being unnecessarily harsh on your results. The master of experimentation and creativity, Edward de Bono once said: "It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all." So try, try and try again because each time you move to a new level or wisdom and mastery.
Self Focus. Your will shapes the future you create and whether you fail or succeed is noone's doing but your own. You are the force, the power in your life: your choice, your responsibility, and you hold the key to your destiny ... Even when it seems you don't. Learning to focus on oneself –without fearing being 'selfish' is an art and culturally alien to most of us in Ireland. This is about truly stepping into taking responsibility for yourself, taking the time to know yourself and to do things for yourself that strengthen your foundation, your health and wellbeing and build your self esteem. There will never be enough time, but unless you discipline yourself to give yourself time to focus on who you are becoming you will not become that person. There is no time like the present and time for your personal growth is the biggest gift you can ever offer yourself.
Time structure - how often do you write something down and not do it, or even write it in your diary? As John Lennon once said, "Regret is what happens when you're busy making plans you never follow through on." The scarcest resource is time - it is always on the decline. Think of time like a bank account where investments and withdrawals need to be carefully managed. How do you allocate your time budget every month? Do you pre-allocate how you spend it or do you fritter it on impulse activities? Don't just take control of your finances during these economic times, take control of your time too and allocate it prudently on the right things!
Zero Competing Commitments - How is it that, despite being committed to change, we so often fail to make the changes we are committed to? if we are not making happen what we claim to be committed to, then there must be a stronger, competing commitment to which we are unknowingly committed. a competing commitment, therefore, can be conscious or unconscious and often relates to something that we are habitually addicted to doing and are afraid of not doing for the consequences that might occur or feelings we might have if we were to do otherwise. Unravelling competing commitments is a journey in self awareness through the web of values and beliefs that direct and shape your life and learning to somersault those which limit you. Coaching, CBT and NLP are all useful techniques to help you work through these.
Energy in Motion Daily - create good emotion about what you're doing, because it gets you moving - it creates action where stagnant waters have set in. Taken literally, the word "emotion" originates from the Greek symbol for energy 'E' and means moving energy. By creating a positive emotion around you, you create a movement of energy, which in turn creates ripples, which result in action and often, encouragement from others..
So find anchors and memory hooks for things that help you feel good - play your favourite song on your IPOD whilst you set about your goal, take a walk in the park, buy a picture of a sunny beach to brighten up your desk ... Dance your but off before work every morning ... anything that gets those good vibrations going!
Board of Directors. Just like companies have boards of directors to help shape the strategy. You are the CEO of YOU Inc and surrounding yourself with a board of mentors, advisors, influences or people whose insights you value or whose work encourages you. Some of these board members can be people you haven't met - perhaps you have a role model that you admire - but they still provide an inspiration and focus of learning for you. So yes, you can put Richard Branson on your personal board of directors if you want to!
Resistance. If you feel resistance to doing part of your goal, the old adage 'no pain no gain' still rings true. From childbirth labour to growing pains in teenagers, pain is a good sign of growth because it rings the changes, and suggests that you ready to move out of your comfort zone and into an opportunity for growth. Put it this way, if you don't move out of your comfort zone you won't achieve your goal. . "Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death", as Anais Nin so aptly described it.
Reflect regularly for clarity - clearing the head through quiet restful reflection, meditation or structured reflective discussion with a mentor or supervisory sage, can help you process events and feelings whilst gaining new insights and resources. Essential for everyone - from business leader and to parent - and developing a daily practice of reflecting on your day, your state of mind and feelings, somersaulting any negative thoughts into positive ones, listening to your dreams, observing yourself in action … will really help you feel more resourceful and proactive, and less reactive and defensive.
Achievement - don't just look at where you're going, look back at how far you've come! On the road to becoming, don't forget to pat yourself on the back sometimes and see how much you've grown and what you've achieved. If you feel you're not achieving, ask someone else for some feedback on what you may not be able to see. Still stumped? Then ask yourself the question, "How much to I really desire and want my goal?" and score it out of 10 (1=low 10 =high). Scores below 6 suggest that you do not want your goal enough to make it happen and really work on the formula above. Is it that you don't believe in yourself, or you fear something along the way or that you have a competing commitment you still haven't resolved in your mind?
"Love the moment. Flowers grow out of dark moments. Therefore, each moment is vital. It affects the whole. Life is a succession of such moments and to live each, is to succeed." Cortita Kent
