GOALS for Today

How will you inspire yourself to work on your goals today?

Today, out of nowhere, this little acronym occurred to me:

GOALS
Go strong
Overcome obstacles
Act relentlessly
Learn constantly
Serve the greater good

What do you think? Maybe it's not a whole training program. Maybe it's not a teleclass. Time will tell. But, it makes sense for today, don't you think?

Goals require us to go strong and act decisively. We must take action!

When we do take action we are likely to experience resistance (from ourselves and from others) so it makes sense to work to overcome those obstacles. Don't let them stop us. Move forward.

Which brings us to the need to act relentlessly. We'll get distracted. We'll be given new work to do. Relationships will bring up new needs. But even while all that and more is going on we much work our plan. We must act relentlessly on our plan.

When we are assertively working on a plan we are likely to make some mistakes. New opportunities arise. The ground shifts and things change. That makes it essential for us to learn constantly. To create new ways to learn and learn when new ways present themselves. What could be more important?

What is important above all of this is to do it in service to something greater than ourselves. It is our responsibility to serve the greater good. Feed the hungry. Clean up the environment. Create justice and fairness. Share responsibility for creating a better world. When we pay attention to that, the rest of the story makes sense and the rest of the work comes much easier.

That's my inspiration on goals for the day. Who knows, maybe it will carry over to more days than this?

What will you do to inspire yourself today?

-- Douglas Brent Smith

Are you working on your goals? Would you like some help? Check out my program, "Achieving Your Goals" or schedule an introductory "How to Achieve Your Goals" teleclass for your group.

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The Best

Do you know this feeling -- fully engaged, highly energized, learning and growing and muscling up to the challenges tossed at you? Once we taste that, we want more. It might be tough, but we want more. There are so many distractions, but we want more. There's nothing quite like comp[letely immersing yourself in who you want to be. Working to be the best, not to overcome someone else, but to level yourself up. Where is your best potential to be the very best? -- doug smith

Necessary Conflict

Avoiding a conflict does not make you neutral. It may be healthy at times to avoid conflict, but if your team or someone you love is suffering because of that conflict, you've got responsibilities. What do you do when conflict is necessary? High performance leaders have a plan because they've practiced sensible strategies over and over again. Maybe consider that aching conflict another practice opportunity. -- doug smith

Future Leaders

Look for team members who take responsibility without being asked to because those are your future leaders. -- doug smith

Secret Desires

The best leaders tell the truth. People know that, even when they don't do that. We live in a world filled with so many lies that people have stopped even believing in truth. If it's all relative anyway then just say what you want, right? No. It's not all relative. And, while the truth will change, and while none of us can be absolutely sure about all truth, we can all tell the truth instead of purposely deceiving others. Maybe it's by design. Lies reveal hidden desires. And, no matter what that desire is, if you have to lie to get it, you won't keep it long. -- doug smith Reflective exercise: What's the biggest lie you've ever told? How long did it remain a secret? What was the final outcome? What do you think would have been the outcome if you'd simply told the truth?

When We're Wrong

Have you ever noticed that people can't seem to realize it when they're wrong? That makes it frustrating for both the person who is wrong and the person who is quite certain that they're wrong. We get stuck. We dig in. It happens in conversations, in conflicts, and in relationships. When we're really wrong, we're really wrong, and we don't even know it. As long as we're wrong we don't see that we're wrong. How do we fix that? (Here it is worth it to pause and wonder, hmmm, how do we?) Pause. It's worth a try. Stay open to possibilities. Listen as if we don't already know the answer, because even if we do the answer might have (probably HAS) changed. When we're wrong we've got to pause to figure that out. And when we're right, we've got to pause to see if that's still true. There's no shame in being wrong. But, it's a total shame to stay that way. -- doug smith

Too Much Drama?

Do you have too much drama at work? Whenever I ask a class this during one of my Managing Conflict programs the answer is almost always "Yes!" (sometimes, it looks like this: YESSSS!!!!) Drama. It's all around us. Conflicts that are hard to resolve. Personality differences. Political incongruities. Societal hypocrisies. Fractured relationships and sore self-esteem. Drama. We like drama. It ignites us. It gets the heart beating faster. But do we really need it when our team just needs to finish a project? Do we really want it when what we should do instead is communicate more effectively, lead with influence instead of power, and reach mutually beneficial outcomes in change? Of course. Drama makes us feel so alive that even when it isn't necessary we tend to invent it. Given a choice, why invent the unnecessary? -- doug smith Notes: Here’s the process we cover in our program on Managing Conflict: 1. Uncover the causes. 2. Defuse the drama 3. Identify your choices 4. Fi...

Fuel the Fire

Goals without discipline are like fire without fuel. Stopped. Fuel the fire. Equip your goals. Develop the discipline to act relentlessly on your plan. Your potential is unlimited, but relies first on the discipline that you develop. -- doug smith

Long Game

Sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. We prepare, we practice, we strategize, and still sometimes the game does not go our way. That's reason enough to know that the game -- any game -- itself is not only about winning. It's how you play, how your team responds, and how you treat your competitors and collaborators. And maybe, when you're lucky enough, your collaborators outnumber your competitors. It's a long game peppered with short fuses. Salted with near-misses. Anguished by disappointment. High performance leaders lead anyway, with the character it takes to produce without reducing. What game are you playing today? How can you win even if you don't win? -- doug Smith

Who Else?

Who else will be happier because of your goal? No matter how important that goal is to you, once it becomes important to someone else as well it becomes far more powerful. You become more powerful, too. Before launching a goal determine who else it will help in addition to yourself. It could change everything. -- doug smith

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