Procrastination or Daily Commitment - How Do YOU Live Your Life?

Procrastination or Daily Commitment?

Here's a test for you . . .

This next month, be diligent about your lawn care and your house cleaning. Mow, trim, water and generally care for your yard regularly (once a week or so). Wash your dishes, do the laundry, dust, wipe the counters, and maintain your home consistently (every day or so).

Then the following month . . . do nothing for the whole month and clean it up on the last day of the month (if you even can).

When you are all done, think about what you just did and ask yourself a couple questions:

- Which one was easier to do?
- Which one felt better - made you happier?
- How did you feel when your family "popped in during the third week of each month"?
- At the end of the month, which yard and home looked better?

Do you really need to do this exercise to know what your answers will be? I don't think so.

Apply This Test To Your Life And Your Business

What if we apply this same idea to ourselves? Or to our relationships? To our customers and our suppliers and our employees?

Do you think putting a little effort in every day, or at least regularly (once or twice a week) would better serve you than ignoring the what matters most to you for months or years at a time?

Again, I know you know the answer. Unfortunately, knowing the answer and doing something about it, are two completely different things.

You can't just say you are going to take better care of yourself every day - physically, emotionally, intellectually, or spiritually. You must do it everyday!

You can't just say you are going to be a better Parent, Spouse, Friend, or Sibling? You have to commit to giving to the relationship regularly!

You can't just tell your customers that they really matter to you "Once in a Blue Moon". You have to show them!

And none of these things are easy.

You forget to eat healthy, work out, or set aside some time to read a good book.

You forget to give your wife a hug, just because you love her.

You forget that your kids are only going to be this age ONCE in their lifetime, until it's already past.

And you forget that if you don't take care of your customers and make them feel wanted in your business, then someone else will.

So, the question is . . . how do you do all of this every day (or at least regularly)?

That is the ultimate question, isn't it?

Believe it or not, it's simpler than you think it is. But simple doesn't equal easy. If it were easy, odds are, you'd already be doing it.

In my opinion, the answer is a SYSTEM - a process that you can regularly count on to keep you on track and not let you get away with not being who you say you want to be.

You need daily accountability that keeps you focused on your priorities when life gets in the way and overwhelms you with other things.

And because most of us can't do this on our own (as we prove daily), you need someone, somewhere, somehow that will call you out (objectively) when you don't do what you say you want to to get done. You need an accountability partner.

An accountability partner can be friend, a family member, a spouse, a mentor, a coach, a clergy, or even someone you barely know. But the key is that you need to be able to hear their inputs and respect them, without taking things personally.

They need to tell you when you aren't doing what you set out to do, but not in a judging way.

They need to help you stay focused and keep you on track . . . especially when you are drifting the most.

They need to be able to give you tools and techniques to get you back on track and encourage you when you need a little support.

But most important, they need to be there . . . even when you don't want them to be. Because at some point in the process of daily accountability, you aren't going to want to hear it any more. You aren't going to like being challenged any more. You are going to want to go back to not taking care of things . . . the way you used to do.

You are going to want to start cleaning house and mowing just once a month again with the relationships and things that matter most to you in your life.

And the only one that is going to keep you from going there is going to be your accountability partner.

So choose wisely.

If you want more information about how to put into place a system that will help you and your accountability partner stay on track, or if you are interested in finding out more about a life or business coach to help you with this effort, please contact me at coach.jj@impossiblefutures.com

Seven Steps To Making Your Goals A Reality

Why do some succeed at reaching their goals and others don't? This is a question that has plagued the less fortunate for centuries.

After watching some succeed and others fail for most of my life, including more than 20 years in the Navy and now nearly 3 years as a Business Coach, I've put together some simple steps to help you reach your goals - Seven to be Exact!

1. Set SMART goals and write them down. Be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Reasonable, and Timely. “Working out more” is not a good resolution. Nor are “lose 20 lbs”, “spend more time with my kids” or even “make my wife happy” - as much as she will tell you that it's the best one there is.

What are you going to do to work out more? How are you going to measure it? By when do you want to lose 20 lbs? How much time do you want to spend with you kids? How often?

As important as it is to set goals, they need to be goals that you can measure, you can reach and ones that have a time line – a call to action.

Instead of “working out more” you might set the goal to create a habit of exercising at least 30 minutes every day by April. Or instead of “losing 20 lbs”, you might set the goal of changing your daily eating habits to only eat 2000 calories per day on the average while burning 2500 calories by March 1st.

Will these goals result in what you are trying to do? Absolutely. But more importantly, they call you to action right now and give you something realistic every day that you can shoot for to get to where you want to be.

And once you set your goals, never waiver! It's too easy to compromise and it costs too much. Once you gone done the path of compromise, you might as well start all over.

2. Be brutally honest with yourself. There are two things that you need to keep in your mind at all times – first is your goal or vision (step one). The other is the truth about “what is” – an honest assessment of the current situation.

For many, this can be the hardest thing – not because they don't look at current reality – but because they don't see it truthfully, and because they don't take responsibility for their participation in it.

You see, what drives you to reach your goals is the tension (stress) created from the gap between your current situation and your goals. The bigger the gap, the more stress on you, the harder you try to shrink that gap. But if you aren't truthful about the current situation, then you lessen the tension and stress that is the driving force for you to take action. And you reduce the likelihood to do what is necessary to reach your goals.

Tell me if you have ever heard this voice inside your head before, “I've done really well this week. I worked out a couple of times – not as much as I had planned, but better than I used to do. Eating one more spoonful of pasta isn't going to break me. I'll just make it up tomorrow.” To be brutally honest, I've heard it many times. And it was usually the beginning of the end of my commitment. It's not that I was intentionally lying to myself, but I certainly wasn't facing reality.

And I certainly didn't make up for it the next day.

3. Create a game plan that includes small measurable steps that you can take every day. Most resolutions are life-changing – and life changing habits don't happen overnight for most of us. They start as small changes to your daily lifestyle, that create huge changes over time.

So, the best thing you can do is to start small – something you can do every day and don't expect miracles from yourself. It can't be so grand that you burn yourself out the very first week, but keeps you moving forward. The key is building momentum. And even if all you can manage is a small improvement, if you do it every day, it will make a huge change in your life. Take that extra small thing you do every day and then multiply it by 365 days a year. You may be surprised at the results.

Carrying the “work out” goal forward. Don't try to start working out every day from the very beginning. You are setting yourself up for failure and you know you will quit in no time. Instead, throttle back your exuberance the first week. Plan to work out twice a week. But on the days that you aren't working out, give yourself five additional minutes when you go to work in the morning. Park the car in the furthest parking spot available and commit to walking into the office, then walk up the stairs instead of using the elevator. It doesn't sound like much, but if you do something everyday you are teaching yourself commitment that will carry forward in the weeks and months ahead.

4. Figure out why you haven't done so well in accomplishing your goals in the past
and plan a way to avoid those same mistakes. Most people think they learn from their mistakes – but few actually do. If they did, they would all eat better, work-out regularly, have no relationship problems and probably make a whole lot more money. So, how good are you at honestly and objectively assessing your past mistakes?

You don't have to be great, you just have to be honest with yourself. And believe it or not, it always comes back to one thing – You.

Look at what you wanted last time and try to see exactly when you stopped taking responsibility for making it happen.

Life will get in the way of your goals – ALWAYS! There will be one or more reasons everyday not to do what you committed to do – those reasons are very real. But it is your choice to overcome them or allow them to become excuses. Expect everything to go wrong in the process. And commit yourself to do whatever it takes to continue anyway.

The best way to overcome this is to list the potential life problems you have had in the past and figure out a way to empower yourself to overcome them. By facing the problems that could arise, you will be armed to preempt them as the come up.

5. Find an accountability partner who will be more committed to your goal than you will. When you enlist someone else to commit to helping you reach your goal or live within your resolution – everyday – you’ll feel accountable to that person. That accountability to someone else, having to report daily progress, will drive you in ways that you haven't felt before.

That person shouldn't be your spouse, or another close loved one whose help may turn into nagging, because of the personal nature of your relationship. Because there will be days when you need their support to be brutal and forthright. Even in the best relationships, this can cause tension that doesn't need to be there. Take a lesson from the mistakes of hundreds, if not thousands before you, and enroll someone whom you trust, but don't have an exceptionally close relationship with.

Your accountability partner should expect a daily report. And you should feel obliged to give it. That person should be able to call you to action, when you are at your lowest motivational point, and cheer you on when you are on top of your game. Marshall Goldsmith, an Executive Coach who has helped hundreds of Senior Executives in Fortune 500 companies, talks about a friend of his that he calls every night. No matter where he is in the world on business, his friend listens to what he got done that day, how well it went and what he intends to do the next day. And he does the same for his friend.

6. Don’t make excuses, except in truly rare circumstances. As I said before, in the real world, life gets in the way. Life is the reason we are where we are today – have the health and wealth we have today. Life is the reason we give ourselves for not sticking with our commitments. But remember,

If you want different results than those you have always gotten,
then you have to do something that you've NEVER done before.

There will be days that you won’t be able to meet your daily goal – whether its walking for 30 minutes, eating less than 2000 calories or spending at least 30 minutes of alone time with your kids. There will be exceptional situations, but the key is to make sure they really are exceptional.
Don’t make excuses for reneging on your resolution or goals. There are no excuses, only facts. And the fact is that you keep your resolution, because it’s part of who you are.

7. Have a reward picked out for reaching your goal – even for small steps along the way. One of the biggest reasons people fail to change the way they do things is that they fail to “reward” themselves for actually accomplishing new things or creating a new behavior.

As complicated as our personality make-up can be, we are really very simple creatures in many respects. When it comes to learning new behaviors, we like to be rewarded when we do good!
Most people set goals like “Lose 15 lbs by June so that I don't feel like a fat slob when I go on vacation.” This type of reward, avoidance of the negative outcome, is rarely successful. In fact, it often creates the undesirable state, because it is what your mind focuses on.

Instead, change your goals to be “Lose 15 lbs by June so that I look hot in my new bathing suit – that I'm gonna buy for myself, when, and only when I reach my goal. Price is no issue - the sky's the limit.”

Think about it, how do you respond better to your wife or to your boss – praise every time you do something good or yelling every time you do something wrong? Which makes you want to do the right thing more next time? Doing things for yourself is no different.

How Did You Improve Your Life Today?

The key to making real change in your life isn't about create massive change - all at once. The bigger and more dramatic the change you try to implement in your life or your business, the higher the probability of failure - the more likely you will go back to your old habit patterns.

Unfortunately, the problem with only making little changes are that most people fail to keep them in place long enough to see a tangible impact, so they usually give up on them. And, quite honestly, few people I know consistency of thought and habit to keep making small changes daily.

Did you know that if you made a .1% improvement (assuming you could measure it) to your life every day, over the course of a year you would improve your life by nearly 45% over the course of a year - and better than a 100% in two years. Do you think you would like to have a dramatically different life just a couple of years down the road?

Just as an example, if you wanted to cut calories from your diet, say go from 3300 calories / day to about 2300 calories per day, you could try to make the cut all at once. But the impact would be devastating to your metabolism and your mental state. And you would start the never ending up and down that so many dieters experience. But if you cut .1% everyday for 6 months, your body would slowly adapt and you could be there stable - with a completely redefined lifestyle and body.

The same thing can be said for anything you want to do in your life.

So how can you successfully implement small changes every day and create a better life (or business) for yourself?

It sounds easy, but it is anything but. And even the best, most talented people on Earth, cannot do it on their own.

The truth is that it requires implementing some form "Daily Accountability" - something or someone that will keep you focused and keep you taking small steps each and every day. It takes an "Accountabili-Buddy" (as was named on South Park) - a friend, a family member or even a coach (if you can find / afford one that will meet with you every day), that will hold you accountable each and every day to make small changes and make them permanent.

But don't expect your "Accountabili-Buddy" to do your work for you - sorry, that's not in the picture. The work is all yours!!! The purpose of your newly found "Accountabili-Buddy" is to keep you on track - to prevent you from falling off course with the daily distractions of life. He will pick you up when you trip. And he will walk beside you when you need someone to support you and encourage you. But most importantly, he will follow you on your journey, so that whenever you feel like giving up, turning back isn't an option. He won't let you turn back. You can stay where you are , as long as you like, but there will be no retreating to old habits.

Think about it. You know you are going to have a bad day - a day where nothing works for you and even the smallest improvement feels monumental. We all have them. "In the past", a bad day would have been enough to rock your world and send you back to your lifelong habit patterns. But when you have someone standing beside you, reminding you what you are trying to do and what you want to accomplish, a one day "hiccup" will be just that.

So go out and get an "Accountabili-Buddy" and take small steps every day that will change your life FOREVER!!!

If you are interested in finding more out about how to leverage the power of "Accountabili-Buddies", contact me at coach.jj@impossiblefutures.com.

What's On Your To Do List?

I read an interesting Tweet this morning, "I've got a lot of things to get done this week, I better make a To Do List".

Have you ever noticed that when you really want to get things done - not just say you want to get them done - you create a To Do list? Why is that?

Because it WORKS!!!

Most of us, at one time or another, don't get things done that we had planned to get done. But it's rarely because we were blowing them off or ignoring them, it's usually because we simply forgot about them.

Hence, the invention of the "To Do List" and the little yellow sticky to put it on (boy I wished I would have invested in 3M back then).

You see, I am big on accountability. In fact, I believe, more than anything else "Accountability" is what a coach brings to his clients. But not everyone has, wants or thinks they can afford a coach - so we try to create methods or systems that will help us fulfill our need for accountability on our own. The "To Do List" is a silent piece of accountability that we create to help us face our successes and failures in accomplishing what it is we want to do.

So if they work so well, why don't we use "To Do Lists" for everything that we need or say we want to get done? The answer is as simple as it is obvious - because there are a lot of things that we say we want to do, but really don't want to do or don't know how to do. And we don't want to waste the magic of getting things done on these lower priority items.

What's on your "To Do List" says a lot about YOU. It reveals "what" and "who" are important to you. You can see whether you are focused on changing your circumstances or maintaining the status quo. And at a very basic level, when viewed over a stretch of time, your "To Do List" reflects your Mission, your Vision, and your Commitments in both business and life - because it reflects what you find "most important" in your life.

So as you look at YOUR "To Do List", what do you see? What is most important to you? And does it reflect what you want it to reflect? Are there things that you say are important to you, but aren't quite making it on your list. Why is that?

So, let me re-phrase my initial Title question. Maybe you shouldn't just be looking at what's on your "To Do List" - maybe you should be looking at what's not on your "To Do List".

And WHY!

Why Do I Need An Accountability Partner

The "great" people and companies in the world find a way to do what the need to do, but don't want to do, to become who they want to be. Nearly every one of those that truly become great have an accountability partner to help them focus on the goal - the future they are trying to achieve. In sports, we call them coaches. In school, we call them teachers. Some of us have family (parents or maybe a spouse) and friends that hold us accountable to become who we want to be without becoming subjectively attached to the outcome. In recent years, the advent of the personal, executive, and business coaching industry has given us even more options. Whatever it takes - find someone who will stand in your future and believe in you even when you lose faith in yourself - someone who can make you do the things you know you should do, but don't want to do, so you can become the person who you dream of becoming.

Probably not a surprise here (coming from a Business Coach), but in my opinion, of all the things that you can do for your own personal success or the success of your company or organization, the most important thing you can do is to get an accountability partner.

So you are probably asking, "Why do I need an accountability partner to be successful?"

Well to be honest with you, you need one because you are human. Because when push comes to shove, you, like me, and like the other six billion people on this earth will usually find reasons (excuses) for not doing the things we know we should do, in order to reach the heights that we aspire to reach and to be the person we know we could be.

We are creatures that like to see immediate, visual results for our actions. And we get frustrated when results are not tied directly in space and time to our actions - meaning that we don't see immediate results for what we are doing.

Unfortunately, great results, like our long-term goals, our worthy dreams and aspirations, are not immediately, clearly visible from our day-to-day actions. They take time - they take long-term commitment to do them, even when you don't see results, so that some day you will.

Creating a vision, having goals, building plans, and being disciplined in our focus is all good stuff - but if we never actually do the work we need to do to accomplish what we want to accomplish, it's all for naught. The plans, the vision, the goals, are all just an exercise in futility.

So stop and think about it, what great things have you ever accomplished without some form of accountability embedded in the process?

Growing up, your teachers, your coaches, and your parents held you accountable to learn. Your music teacher / conductor held you accountable to practice so that you would be ready for your recital. In school, you read many stories that you weren't interested in, and had to do more addition, subtraction, multiplication and long division problems than you ever thought was necessary. And in sports, your coaches made you run laps and conduct drills again and again - even to the point that it felt pointless - just so you could win the big game.

And you did it all - because someone you believed in, you looked up to, and someone who believed in your goals held you accountable to do the things you needed to do, to become the person you wanted to become. That's not to say that there isn't an internal drive that many individuals have to achieve their goals. But in life, any goal that is going to require real internal, lasting changes is going to require someone standing beside you (and often carrying you) when you simply don't feel like doing it any more or don't see purpose to it anymore.

So let's be serious, would YOU have done any of those things without your accountability partners? Some of you may have - I know I wouldn't have. Every chance I had growing up, I managed to do what I needed to be "good" enough to get by - no more - no less. If I was good, I was happy. The truth be known, I wanted to be great, but never had any one push me hard enough to become great. I guess the statement, "Good" was the enemy of "Great" rang true for me.

We all need someone who won't let us be lazy - won't let us trick the system and just do enough to get by if we want to reach the next level. Whether it is a personal trainer, a life coach, a business coach, or just a great friend you trust, get yourself an accountability partner today and see what new heights they can help you reach.

If you are interested in learning more about having an accountability partner,
please feel free to contact me at coach.jj@impossiblefutures.com.