How to avoid the distraction of someone else's goals

Do people interrupt your work on your own goals because they want you to work on theirs?

How do you get back on track? How to you keep your focus on your own goals?

People mean well. It's a good thing that their goals are important to them. And, in many cases we find the time to help them with their goals and sometimes they reciprocate. That's healthy. What's a problem is getting so pulled into someone else's situation that your own goals go untended. That does not lead to success or happiness.

Here are some ways to keep your focus on your own goals:

1. Schedule time to work on them. Keep that time inviolate. When people interrupt, let them know when you will be available and not until then.

2. Post your goals so that others can see what you're working on. If you've written them skillfully enough, other people may interrupt so that they can work on YOUR goals.

3. Find an isolated placed to work on your goals (I'm doing that right now to avoid interruption!). Someone people like a busy place like a coffee shop -- others like a quiet room or nature spot. Find out what works best for you and choose it at least once this week.

4. When someone does interrupt, take the time to understand their reason. It may be valid. It may be worth your attention. In any case, they won't be ready to leave you alone until you've taken the time to understand them -- to validate either what they want or who they are. This can feel like it takes extra time, but in the long run will save you lots of time.

5. Align your goals with the goals of your organization. This keeps your focus on things that matter to the people who pay you. Why would anyone in your organization want to stop that from happening? The closer the alignment and more clear how your efforts advance the organization, the more freedom you will have to work on those goals.

What other ways have you discovered to avoid the distraction of someone else's goals? I'd love to know what also works for you...

--Douglas Brent Smith

Get the coaching you need to achieve your goals in our group coaching program:Achieving Your Goals.

Comments

How Does Your Feedback Feel?

Centered, high performance leaders carefully consider what their feedback feels like to others before delivering it.

-- Doug Smith

Learn From Feedback

Are you getting all the feedback that you need - or do you sometimes avoid it because you won't like what it says?

I've been known to avoid some critical feedback. It doesn't make me feel good. Sometimes, there's nothing that I can do about it anyway. But, by avoiding the feedback altogether I could miss the piece of positive feedback inside, or the advice that truly matters, or an opportunity to communicate more clearly and reach better understandings and agreements.

Feedback can feel like hard work, but it's worth it.

If we want to achieve our biggest goals it helps to know how we're doing along the way.

Goal achievers learn from feedback every day.

We don't have to apply every piece of feedback. And for heaven's sake, we don't have to take it personally. As my much respected graduate school professor Dr. Jay Desko has said, "feedback says more about the person providing the feedback than it does about the person receiving the feedback." …

Unfiltered Feedback

Every leader needs feedback from someone who will tell the truth no matter what.

Who is that someone for you?

-- Doug Smith

Take the Feedback

Feedback can be hard to take but far worse to ignore.

Take the feedback. What you do with it is your business, but take it. Hear it. Stay curious. Move ahead.

-- doug smith

Compassionate Feedback

What do you do when you know that your feedback for someone on your team will be tough to hear?

Before I learned better, I would sometimes just keep the feedback to myself. I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings, after all. And they made it this far without that feedback so...

But that's not the most compassionate approach. Withholding something that could make someone's life and performance better is not being sensitive, it's being ineffective. Tell them what's going on. Tell them what you are thinking. Offer your suggestions.

It can still be kind. It can even be graceful. It might even contain a bit of humor. But it's best as feedback when it is clear and to the point.

Prepare for that difficult feedback. You already know that there are right ways and wrong ways to deliver feedback. Plan, and practice. Get it right.

Before you give feedback imagine how it would feel to hear that directed at you -- and then adjust accordingly.
Be the boss you always wante…

Keep Getting Feedback

Are you a strong boss?

Are you totally sure of yourself?

Is your team a wild success?

Get feedback. Pay attention. Assume nothing.

The stronger the boss, the more compelling is the need for honest feedback.

Promote honest feedback, listen, and continually improve.

-- Doug Smith

Leadership Is Service

Leadership is service. No matter how strongly you hold a goal, no matter how driven you are to succeed, the purpose of leading is to help. The essential question is "how can I help?"It gets tough when there are deadlines, meetings, deliverables ahead of you. Interruptions feel unproductive. Helping others feels disruptive. Still, however busy we are, the essential question remains "how can I help?"Serving others may not feel productive until you're the one who needs the help.-- doug smith

Listen In Case We're Wrong...

Every argument contains at least one misunderstanding.Why?So often we are in such a hurry to express ourselves that we don't pay attention to what someone else is saying. Or, we confuse style with content. When we find someone's personality abrasive it's easy to disregard anything they have to offer. Right, or wrong.I learned the hard way that none of us ever has the complete picture. Even when our opinion is correct, it is incomplete. Until we see a more complete picture (we may never know all of the details) we would do well to stay curious. Every argument starts with misunderstandings, and usually stays there. What if we dug deeper? What if we did stay curious? What if we're wrong - how will we know unless we listen?-- doug smith

Problems Are Platforms

What good are problems?Don't you find them aggravating? Don't you prefer straight paths to achieving your goals?And yet, there they are: problems standing in the way. Since they're there, why not make use of them? Since they're there, why not ask powerful questions that open up learning and identify new possibilities?Problems present platforms to ask powerful questions.So there's that.-- doug smith

Keep Going!

How does it feel when you miss a goal?It's not fun. It can be discouraging. When it happens to me I have to ask myself what went wrong. Didn't I work hard enough? Was my plan flawed? Even though I do tend to achieve most of my goals, when I miss it hurts. Feel the hurt. Learn the lesson. Move forward. That's what I tell myself.An unachieved goal need not break you. There are new goals ahead.Keep Going!-- doug smith

doug smith training

Search This Blog