Breaking Through
Transcending Personal Barriers by Laura Huckabee-Jennings

Now that you have a vision of where you are going, it is important to set goals that move you in the direction of your vision. I like to make sure they are SMART goals. You may have heard this acronym before, but it stands for: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-Bound.

If your goal is to have a healthy body, for example, you might set a goal of losing 20 pounds by October 31st, 2010, or you might set a goal of reducing your soda consumption to no more than 8 oz per day by September 1st, or any other goal that helps you reach your definition of “a healthy body”. The exact goals you set will be very specific to you, and there is no “right” or “wrong” goal, just like there isn’t a “right” vision.

In a business context, your goal might be to improve effectiveness of your meetings, and the SMART goal could be something like: Have a clear agenda for each meeting 24 hours ahead of time and end each meeting on time and with a clear set of action items assigned to specific individuals with deadlines. Or: Have only one key issue per meeting, and keep meetings to under 1 hour. Or: Have meetings only when there is a need for discussion and decision-making or quick touch-base meetings, not just to “share” information better presented in writing. All of these are possible goals. The point is to make it specific to your image of what the goal looks like.

To start with, you need to get specific about what things would have to be present for you to feel you have attained your vision. If your vision is to have a healthy body, what does that mean to you? Is it about weight, body fat percentage, how fast you walk a mile, ability to touch your toes, how much you can bench press, how often you exercise, the kinds of foods you nourish yourself with, the measure of cholesterol or other blood chemicals? If your vision is to have effective meetings, what does that mean? Is it about wasting less time, enjoying meetings more, having fewer meetings, building accountability, increasing focus, or just about making clearer decisions in meetings? All of these are possible, and many many more. Sometimes it helps to close your eyes and place yourself in your vision and imagine how you will feel there, and what will have changed for you to feel this way.

Now that you have visualized it, what specific goals did you attain to feel that way? And how can you begin moving in that direction? If you have a specific business-related goal, what are some first steps you could take to work toward your vision?

While setting goals, it is important to remember to set Realistic goals (remember the “R” in SMART?). Too often, we set goals that are very ambitious, but perhaps too ambitious and when we are unable to achieve them as quickly as we planned, we feel that we have failed.

In order to avoid this feeling of failure, but still stretch yourself to push a little further than is “easy”, it is best to set yourself a series of smaller goals for the coming week or month. To stick with our health example, a set of first steps might be to have a physical, stop drinking sugary drinks, and start walking 30 minutes every day. While this might be possible, it might be challenging, so you might set a “minimum acceptable” goal of getting the physical, and walking at least twice a week for 30 minutes, and eliminating sugary drinks during the week. Finally, you might set a target somewhere between this minimum and your ideal, and aim for that. At least if you achieve the minimum, you will feel that you have made meaningful progress, and you may be able to do even more than that in the process.

For our business meeting example, you might start with small steps such as making a list of all the types of meetings you currently have, and identifying the purpose each is serving, and outlining which ones could be eliminated, which ones need to be improved, and what might need to be added. Your “minimum acceptable” goal might be to just have the list of current meetings and their purpose. And the target could be somewhere in between where you have the list of meetings and their purpose, and you identify which ones most need improvement. Again, you will at least be able to make the list, and feel you are “on the path” to making improvements, but also feel like there is some challenge in reaching for the middle and ideal targets.

If your goals are long-term, such a 1-2 year or more away, be sure to set up some interim goals. In most cases, it is hard to set a goal of getting a big promotion, getting married, changing your corporate culture or other multi-step challenges and achieve it in a couple of months, so break your goal up into shorter-term milestones that you can aim for and feel the satisfaction of making progress before you achieve ultimate success.

Now that you have established your goals, write them down. Track them. Review them at least weekly and see how you are progressing. If you find that you are slipping, think about what specifically happens in the moment you slip up, and how you might change your thoughts and emotions to break through the next potential slip and move forward.

More next time on developing strategies around each goal.

The next step in this journey to greater success and fulfillment is establishing your personal vision.  A personal vision is grounded in the present and includes every significant aspect of your life, who you are, and what you desire in your life.

A great place to begin this is to start with a deep understanding of your own natural talents, abilities and preferences.  There are several tools to do this, but one I really like is called Strengths Finder 2.0, and it will give you a clear idea of your top 5 strengths and the kinds of activities you will undertake with mastery.  Building a vision that plays to your strengths will drive greater enjoyment and fulfillment.  Anytime that you are working against your strengths, you will find it feels like really hard work.   Your innate talents do not change with training, experience or education, but are intrinsic characteristics of who you are.  Knowing what your talents are is vital to creating a robust and meaningful personal vision.

The other elements your personal vision needs to incorporate are:

• Your Skills and Experience: what expertise, knowledge and wisdom have you gained in your life?  What specific skills have you acquired?  Which ones do you want to continue to use?
• Your Interests and Passions:  What gives you energy and ignites your passions?  What needs in the world are you compelled to meet?  What activities or causes create “flow” or a state where you lose track of time?
• Your Communication and Interpersonal Style: how do you prefer to interact with people?  Are you introverted or extroverted?  Do you prefer to deal with data or feelings?  Are you future-oriented in your interactions or more grounded in the here and now?  MBTI, DISC, MAPP and other assessments can help you define this if you don’t already know.
• Your Values:  What are the values that drive you?  Can you name your top five?  Some you might consider:  hard work, spirituality/closeness to God, honesty, fairness, adventure, fun, accomplishment, service to others, family, wealth, mastery, unity, questioning, organization, acceptance, faith, exploration, healing, appreciation, respect… etc.  Taking the time to identify your most important values is worth the effort in making sure your vision honors those values.  (See #2!)
• Your Goals: What you want to accomplish in life, how you see the purpose of your journey and where it is headed.
• Your personal history: what messages have you incorporated from your childhood and early development?  What did your family, teachers and other mentors tell you about your role in life and what you might accomplish?  How do you wish to keep these messages or free yourself from them?
• Your stage in life:  Where you are in your life will determine what you will include in your vision.  Be clear about how this stage of your life is unfolding and what decisions are facing you and how your vision can address this.

Start by just writing what feels right at the moment, and then revisit it and edit frequently until you have a vision statement that inspires you to take action to realize that vision, and begin living like it has already happened.

You will want to post your vision statement in a place where you will see it daily, and make time to read through it at least once a week.  If it starts to feel stale, or your vision of the future begins to shift, just rewrite it.  It’s yours, and it needs to serve to inspire you, so change it until it does that for you.  You may even want to include images that help you feel the joy in your vision, inspiring quotes, or record it with music that uplifts and inspires you.

Have you ever had the feeling that you were just “looking and acting the part” in your work life?  Or that somehow you were doing activities that played to your weaknesses and left you feeling drained?  Or maybe even that “if everyone would just do what I need them to….” it would all be easier and better?

First of all, if you have, you are not alone.  Some of the symptoms of this type of disconnect between “the real you” and the “you at work” are:

• Overwhelm and Rush.  You always have too much to do, and never enough time to do it, and keeping all those balls in the air is wearing you out.  If you could just add a few more hours to the day it would all work out…
• Urgency overload.  Everything is important and has to be done now, and even small issues feel like major crises.
• “Silver bullet” mentality, or “next week/month/year I will be in control…”.  This can easily become a pattern in your life where there is always going to be time to enjoy your life after the next (big contract/promotion/raise/startup/joint venture/client).  It will all be better as soon as….
• Externally-driven Goals and Priorities.  This looks like striving for goals and focusing on priorities that will garner external recognition, like a title, an income level, an award – because of what other people will think of you when you get there.

The worst part is that these symptoms tend to feed one another, and you can find yourself in a spiral of stress very quickly.  I call this the “Driven Life”.

But, there is an alternative I call the “Purposeful Life”, and its symptoms include:

• Long-Term focus on Fundamentals.  This means looking out into the future and working on things that form the foundation for achieving your long-term vision.
• Internally-driven Goals and Priorities.  This means setting and prioritizing goals that are based on your personal vision, not based on externally or “system”-driven criteria for success or achievement.  What is really important to you, regardless of what society or your mother think.
• Vision-based Choice and Decisions.  In the purposeful life, you make decisions from a place of balanced vision and can measure any decision against whether or not it is taking you toward or away from your vision.
• Priority-driven scheduling to build balance.  Finally, with a strong personal vision, you drive your schedule, your schedule does not drive you.  You put the things that really matter in your plan, and you begin to eliminate the things that do not increase your energy and your ability to achieve the vision.

I have outlined 10 steps to building a career and life around who you were meant to be, not necessarily who you think you are expected to be.  The first one is:

1. Stop the Rollercoaster and Focus on You

In order to change the way you feel and behave and become the best business person you can be, you have to begin by set aside time to examine yourself and your situation and take the steps required to make permanent change.  This isn’t a 15-minute exercise, either, but rather a long-term commitment to valuing yourself and your unique contributions, desires and goals.

If you think you don’t have time for this, or you don’t have time for this “right now”, look back at the list of “Driven Life” characteristics and realize that you can be stuck in this pattern for life unless you find a way to make a change now, because now is all there is.

In fact, this exercise of becoming the business person you were meant to be can be started in a few hours, but to create meaningful change, I suggest you give yourself a year to allow your logical and emotional minds to collaborate on your vision of yourself, and to fully integrate new thinking and new habits in a sustainable way.  Plan on at least a couple of hours a week over a few months to start.  Build this time into your schedule – what work could be more important?

Next time step 2:  Establish a meaningful personal vision

Entrepreneurs are by their nature a pretty risk-tolerant group. They have to be – setting off on their own to do something no one else has done, or at least that no one else has done in quite the same way, in the same place, that they are doing.

However, taking risks doesn’t have to be the same as being reckless. For most businesses, there is a logical set of steps in researching the market, the customer, the competition, in order to assess the level of risk, and manage it.

I often work with entrepreneurs, and one of the most common things I find is that serial entrepreneurs can be victims of their own success. What does that mean? Well, many entrepreneurs did well by doing one or two things right, and then getting extraordinarily lucky. They hit a market at the right time, with the right product or service, and in spite of doing little or no “traditional” business management, and bucking the models, they were successful. What do you learn from this? Well, many of them believe in the power of their own success, and that the models are useless and that they can succeed at anything based on the sheer power of their personality and acumen.

Surely you can see the flaw in this logic, but also why it is so seductive. It is not unusual for these successful people to go on to start one or more additional businesses – and fail. They take the lesson of success and continue to disdain traditional management, planning, strategy and organization. Occasionally they will again get lucky, but far more often I see them fail and wonder why the magic didn’t work again.

Those who overcome this learn that hard work and smart management of a company is a surer path to success than the force of personality or luck. They begin to do more research, and look at more data. They begin to track their failures and identify root causes. They begin to learn more about motivating people, creating great organizations, channel marketing, sales strategies, partnering, product development, and many other management topics. In other words, they evolve into great leaders and business people.

When you look at your business or group, are you using the best tools available to maximize your chances of success? Have you discarded management tools and theories because they aren’t perfect and others have succeeded without them? Do you have a coach or consultant helping you find the best out there and applying it to your business problems? Are you tapping into the creativity of your team to build on best practices and create new innovations in running a business, or are you repeating mistakes made by many others before you?

I invite you to look at how you are working and running your business and how you could build a sturdier foundation for the growth you can achieve.