What Do You Really Want?

"The key is not to prioritize your schedule,

but to schedule your priorities."

-Stephen R. Covey

I just got back from a powerful weekend with my Platinum Mastermind Group, which is facilitated by Jack Canfield and Jim Bunch and meets quarterly. Prior to departing for this meeting, I reviewed what I had committed to doing three months ago when we last met. I had announced that I would write a book and publish it on my 50th birthday next May. 

A week ago I was dreading going to my mastermind meeting and reporting to everyone that I had not even started writing my book, despite the fact that I had set aside quite a bit of focus time for that purpose. I felt like a complete failure. 

When I did some soul-searching, I came to the realization that the book simply was not a priority right now, and I decided not to write it. To my surprise, a number of people in my mastermind group had not accomplished some of their big goals, either, and they were feeling much the same as I was.  Some admitted that they almost cancelled their airline tickets because they did not want to have to report their "failure" at our gathering.  I was amazed at how many of us had a similar experience. 

What I learned during our gathering was that a number of us had chosen lifestyle over accomplishing some of the lofty goals we declared three months ago.  When I realized that this was what was behind my resistance to writing my book, it completely shifted the way I thought about my decision.  Instead of thinking about it as a "failure," I realized that it was simply a choice that I made, based on my priorities right now. 

Over the weekend, Jim Bunch shared four decision-making criteria that helped me to understand this better. Without consciously realizing it, I had used these criteria to come to my decision.  Had I consciously asked myself these questions back when I first considered writing my book, I probably never would have set that as a goal this year. 

Decision-making criteria:

1. What will this do to my lifestyle?
2. What's the return on investment?  (By the way, the return is not necessarily just monetary!)
3. What's the value or impact this will make on those I serve?
4. How does this align with my goals?

Having the intention of writing a book presented some competing values for me.  Although I think the book would have had high value to others (#3) and had the potential to generate a good return on investment (#2), I realized that writing a book right now would take a huge toll on some important lifestyle choices (#1) I've made.  For me, writing the book represented increased stress, less time for important relationships and self-care, and decreased focus on some other very important priorities in my business at the moment.  I had felt these other priorities slipping away, and that was creating great angst for me. I was actually beginning to feel resentful about "having" to write the book.  Big red flag!

"Success is only another form of failure

if we forget what our priorities shoud be."

-Harry Lloyd

Choosing to live a more thoughtful, self-directed life in the midst of a society that seems to thrive on a frenzied pace requires determination, planning, and self-discipline.

Focus on what you want rather than what you don’t want.  The mind is very powerful.  What you think about is what you’ll manifest in your life.  For example, if you tell yourself, “Don’t watch TV,” then your focus is on watching TV.  Instead, create a list of alternative things you choose to do with that time, and tape the list on the remote control.  When you reach for the remote, you will see your list of other choices, which will not only remind you of your desire to watch less TV, but will provide you with a list of alternative choices to consider.

Here’s a short exercise to help you stay focused on what you want:

1. Take a few minutes to connect with what’s most important in your life.  In order to feel fulfilled and at peace, what are your non-negotiable wants and needs?
2. With this in mind, identify your Breakthrough Goals for the next 90 days – one for each of these three areas of your life. See the example below.
   • Happy: Spend at least 30 minutes a day connecting meaningfully with my children.
   • Healthy: Achieve my ideal body weight of 130 lbs and my ideal BMI of 25 by October 31.
   • Wealthy: Create a family budget and tracking system in Quicken so I have a firm grasp on our income, expenses, donations, and investments by October 31.
3. Identify one action step you will take tomorrow for each of the three goal areas -- actions that will move you toward achieving your breakthrough goals.
4. At the end of the day, review what happened with the goals you set yesterday.  What worked?  What didn’t work?  What can you adjust so you can have better outcomes tomorrow?  After you’ve evaluated today, set your actions for tomorrow.  (Do this daily.)
5. Block out time in your schedule for tomorrow to make these things happen.
6. Build in accountability by telling someone about your intentions and ask them to check with you.  (This person needs to be able to suspend judgment, or the accountability check-ins will not be perceived as support to you.)

Tips to help you follow through with your intentions:

• Whenever possible, automate things that can be automated.  For example, if you want to back up valuable data on your computer nightly, use a reliable online backup program rather than relying on yourself to have to remember to do it.  (Mozy.com is my favorite remote backup service.  They even give away 2GB of backup for free. Back up your digital photos, music, video, email, financial information, documents, and more.) 
  
  
• Schedule important tasks with someone else.  For example, I have three personal training sessions scheduled each week at the gym.  I have not missed a single appointment!  If you don’t want to pay for such services, schedule workout time with a friend or colleague.  This commits you to showing up.

• Build in deadlines for yourself.  For example, if your goal is to create a way to track your financial information in Quicken and you have been dragging your feet for months or years on getting the data entered, schedule an appointment with a financial advisor who wants to see all the data.  This will build in a deadline and you’ll be more likely to get it done.

Need Help Getting Organized?

Two FREE webinars will help!

Is this you?

• Do you often wonder where the time went?
• Does your to-do list keep getting longer, even though it feels like nothing is getting done?
• Have you totally given up on keeping a to-do list? (After all, you're never able to cross anything off, so what's the point?)
• Do you have trouble finding what you need?
• Do you feel like you’ll NEVER catch up?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, we can help out by teaching you some powerful techniques that will help you increase your personal and professional productivity. (In fact, don't be surprised if we can add an hour or MORE to your day EVERY DAY. Imagine what you would do with an extra hour each and every day.)

Here’s what you’ll be able to accomplish when you attend my upcoming webinars and put what you learn into practice:

• Find anything you’ve filed or stored in 5 seconds or less.
• Set your priorities and focus on what matters most (do this and you'll be amazed at how fast you can start crossing things off your to-do list).
• Remember important follow-up tasks BEFORE rather than AFTER…(wouldn't that save tons of stress not to mention embarrassment?).
• Efficiently handle mail, filing, returning phone calls and other repetitive tasks so you'll have more time to do the things you LOVE to do.
• Streamline information management and communications (no more time wasted on information that's "interesting but not relevant” to what you need NOW).
• Relax and enjoy a less cluttered environment.