Unsticking Sticky Goals

Posted 9 months, 3 weeks ago at 1:00 am. 0 comments

How many times have you set a goal that you thought was absolutely amazing, only to stall out half way towards completion? For example, you may have decided to increase the amount of RSS subscribers to your website by 1,000 in two months, but it’s been a month and a half and you’ve only got 700 subscribers. What do you do? You don’t want to abandon your goal, but you aren’t necessarily satisfied with your current results. You know in your heart you can do better!

Situations like these are what I like to call “sticky goals“. You literally become stuck somewhere on your path towards goal completion - it’s almost like your goal needs an energy drink! In a situation where you have a sticky goal that is in desperate need of some CPR, I use a technique that’s fairly simple: I brainstorm ideas that I know could completely exceed my goal.

Brainstorm more ideas for above and beyond goal completion

Notice my choice of words - “completely exceed my goal”, “above and beyond goal completion”. The solutions you come up to complete your goals are directly proportional to the questions you ask yourself on how to complete said goals. For example, suppose you ask yourself “How can I squeeze two extra minutes in my day?” You’d tell yourself how easy of a question it is - you could leave two minutes later to work, wake up two minutes earlier, take two minutes off of your daily shower, and so on. Now suppose you ask yourself “How can I add fifteen minutes in my day?” It’s a tricker question, but I’m sure you could think of some great solutions. Finally, imagine asking yourself “How could I add an hour in my day?” Whoops! Now you’re pushing your mental capacity. An hour is a lot of time - it just doesn’t come from nowhere. You’ll have to do some out-of-the-box thinking. What activities could you cut corners and free up some extra time with? What can you completely cut out of your daily schedule?

Goal brainstorming falls into the same category. Too often a person will have a goal where they need to do out-of-the-box thinking, but they ask themselves simple questions. They want to add an hour to their day, but they instead ask themselves “How can I squeeze two extra minutes in my mornings?” These people will get solutions, of course, but the answers won’t lead to the desired outcome they were hoping for. You see small thinking all of the time with bloggers. They want to know “How can I get 1,000 visitors to my website?” but they’ll ask themselves “How can I get 10 new visitors to see my product?” Ask small questions, get small answers. Ask big questions, get big answers.

You can use this type of thinking in a variety of settings:

• You want to increase something by X amount (subscribers, sales)
• You want to make a product go above and beyond expectations (designing a website)
• You want to present something that people will be floored with (a presentation)

Don’t ask yourself how to merely complete the goal - ask yourself what you could do to make the goal an absolute, outright success if you had to complete your goal at all costs. Sometimes the best answers are created by flamboyant thinking. Part of the reason your goal is stalling out might very well be because you aren’t thinking big enough!

8 Ways to Energize Your Afternoons

Posted 9 months, 3 weeks ago at 11:30 am. 0 comments

When afternoon lulls hit, they hit hard. And when you’re trying to be productive and have a great day, nothing brings down your energy like the feeling you’re being hit by a semi-truck.

Afternoons are a bit different than mornings for several reasons. First, the boost of energy you feel in the mornings is generally gone by 2pm, and you’re left will willpower, motivation, and self-discipline to get you through the rest of the day. Second, you’re likely to be burnt out from a mass of projects that you’ve been chipping at since 9AM. Lastly, you’re frazzled from having to deal with distractions all day.

I know where you’re coming from. I feel your pain - afternoon blues plague me too. Fortunately, I have some tips you can use to re-energize your afternoons, so you can accomplish everything you want to on a given day.

1. Make a plan of what you want to accomplish. With a crystal clear plan of what you want to get done, you automatically become more motivated. Working without a plan in the afternoon is like trying to drive through fog - you can only see so far in front of you. Fuzzy, unclear goals are no good; they’re entirely de-motivating. Decide exactly what you want to do, write it down, and get to work.
2. Deliberately schedule some downtime. One of the major problems people have with afternoon scheduling is that they try to cram in every little task they can think of because they want to stay “productive”. Unfortunately, productivity suffers when you start running out of steam. Take breaks liberally if you can. The more energized you are, the more creative and focused your thinking and actions will become.
3. Don’t skip out on the caffeine. It’s odd to say this, but if you’re one of those people who is a major coffee drinker, and you bypass your afternoon cup of coffee, your late afternoon and evening will be a nightmare. Drink the cup(s) of coffee to bypass caffeine headaches and to give you a quick burst of energy.
4. Do some light exercising. No, no, you don’t have to go running for 30 minutes around your neighborhood. Just do some light exercises that are energizing. Take a quick 5~10 minute walk around your block, or lift a couple of 1lb weights for several reps. Even dancing in your chair for a few minutes will boost your heart rate and make you feel a bit more alert and energetic!
5. Listen to uplifting, upbeat music. This is the perfect reason to put in your Madonna CD! When you hear music with a good beat that makes you happy, those feelings immediately rub off on you. How many times have you been in the car when your favorite song comes on, and you can’t help but smile and belt it out for the world to hear? That is what your afternoon music should do to you! Put in some tunes that make you feel great, and watch your enthusiasm level soar.
6. Review your goals and aspirations. Knowing why you’re working on (what you think are) asinine, boring projects is a class of motivation in itself. Taking a look at your current goals and lifelong aspirations can make you realize why you want to have a productive afternoon - which in turn will make you feel more motivated and inspired to take action on even the dullest of projects.
7. Talk to the people you care about most. Call up a friend or significant other when your afternoons start to go to waste. You’re a person - and people are extremely social creatures who want to talk to other like-minded persons like themselves. Just hearing another person’s encouraging words can be enough motivation for you to finish that project you’ve been procrastinating for months on.
8. … don’t do anything productive at all! Yeah, I know… Bad advice, right? I don’t think so! Everybody has those days where nothing goes right. You spill hot coffee on yourself, you accidentally throw away an important paper, you snap at your boss, something sad happens in your life, and you got the wrong order at McDonalds when you went to get lunch. If this sounds like the story of your afternoon, just think about taking the rest of the day off, if possible, and relax as much as you can. You can always start your projects where you left off tomorrow morning.