easy goal setting for the skeptical mind
Attitude Adjustment, Performance & Productivity, Personal Development, Staying Healthy

Easy Goal Setting for the Skeptical Mind

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It’s a New Year! How’s that goal setting going?

You guys! We did it. A new year is upon us and thus too is an opportunity to be “resolute.” Obviously, we’re talking about resolutions and goal setting. And, although we’re not even one month into 2018, I’m already sick of the resolutions… as are many. Hell, I’m already seeing fewer numbers at the gym. As long as I can remember, I’ve hated resolutions. Maybe “hate” is a strong word… Maybe “been skeptical of” is better phraseology to describe my relationship with resolutions and the larger concept of “goal-setting.” I’ve certainly been a major skeptic of announcing my goals and there seems to be some research to back that up. If you too are a skeptic of resolutions and goal-setting then consider me an understanding ally in your skepticism.

What’s wrong with goal setting?

Don’t get me wrong; I have no problem with goal achieving but it’s the act of goal setting, planning, writing, journaling, and… (gulp)… visualizing that’s so draining. Whew! That last sentence was so exhausting to think about that it became nearly impossible to articulate just how much I dislike it. I mean visualizing? Say what you will about the hated words of “moist” or “gurgle” but I often think the worst word in our modern lexicon has to be “visualization”.

I think this all stems from the expectations that come from goal setting among us lay people in the larger population. If there is something that you feel you must do for yourself, then you don’t wait, plan, or visualize – you just do it.

  • Your diet doesn’t need to start on Monday.
  • You don’t have to finish that last pack of cigarettes before you quit smoking.
  • You honestly don’t need a new outfit to start working out.
  • You definitely don’t need a new computer to start writing that book.

If you are feeling so compelled to do THAT THING that would be “life-changing”, then when why is there so much rigmarole and waiting? Just start doing it. At least, that’s what I used to believe… and still do with caveats.

My Journey

My biggest life change came about 7.5 years ago. My wife and I were expecting our first child and there was this guy at my work that had a heart attack at the age of 33. This dude was in incredible shape (much better shape than myself) but due to life stresses and a congenital defect, he had a heart attack. Although I don’t have any congenital abnormalities myself, I couldn’t help but have some anxieties about the fact that I was tipping the scales at 280 pounds, not yet 30, not yet experiencing all the pressure life has to offer, and that if I didn’t change I might not be around for my kids. So… I just started.

Basic stuff, really – I took a dry erase marker and wrote down my weight on our bathroom mirror. “7/1/2010 – 277.8”.

Then I did some stuff. I can’t tell you exactly what I did because I didn’t write it down. It was pretty simple stuff: I ate fewer breakfast sandwiches; I ordered 4 items from Taco Bueno instead of 5; ate 5 slices of pizza instead of 8; and, did about 15 knee pushups in the morning and in the evening. When we brought our son home from the hospital 15 days later, I weighed 260.

After that, I did something the skeptic in me shakes his head at: I wrote down the date of one-week in the future, and wrote down a weight beside it… a goal weight. Without realizing it, I had written down a goal.

It was only about a pound or two but I did it again, and again, and again. I didn’t really have an “end” goal in my mind… just short term goals. I met or surpassed many of those goals but on many of them I fell well short. Hell, sometimes I went in the opposite direction and gained weight during that period of time. The point is that despite not having an “end-goal” in mind, I had the idea of progress on my mind and defined success one week at a time. Eventually, I got down to 185 pounds. I drifted back up to 220 and then back down to a relatively steady equilibrium of about 200 (plus or minus five pounds depending on the season).

The Takeaway:

I suppose the realization that hopefully my fellow skeptics can take from this is that there doesn’t necessarily have to be an end-goal in mind. Sometimes “progress” is the goal and that’s OK. We are creatures that can grow, learn, and get haircuts. Our cells die and are reborn every day. Second-to-second, we are different people. There is no finite physical state; therefore there does not have to be a finite goal we are working towards. The reality is that there is infinitude in our resolutions. The part we must wrestle with however is that with infinite long-term possibilities and variables, we must work a little harder to identify the more finite short-term accomplishments. To accomplish the next step, you might have to swallow your skepticism and write down your next step.

In the spirit of openness and honesty, I have to publicly announce that I still have goals that are written down. I practice goal-setting… I’m a goal setter. Like many, I now have goals for my health, goals for my finances, and goals for my career. I’ve even written about the importance of goal-setting for government workers! If I’m being honest, it’s still a struggle to look at those goals, repeat those goals, and (heaven forbid) visualize those goals every day because… it still just seems so silly. Sometimes I fall short of the goals and sometimes I achieve them or surpass them but the importance is that I’m always working towards them. If you too are a skeptic or are interested in the journey of what goes through a skeptic’s mind as he pursues goals, keep checking stopdoingnothing.com and maybe we can work through it together.

Riley Ross is a writer, speaker, and host of the Y’all OK Podcast. At www.rileyevanross.com, he writes about excellence in Government, Oklahoma, and is beginning a series on the timeless concept of Moderation.

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How to be more outgoing
Attitude Adjustment

SDN019: How I made $400,000 from a single conversation

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One of the best things you can be in life and in business is more outgoing and more approachable when it comes to making new friends. I thought I’d use this time between us to talk about my history- how I’m more outgoing, more boisterous; how I make great connections, how I shake more hands, and how it’s benefited me in my life and in my business.

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How To Procrastinate Less
Performance & Productivity, Personal Development

To Procrastinate Less, Start Doing These Five Things

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According to this article in the Wall Street Journal, procrastination may not be just a matter of laziness. It may also be related to a deep emotional strategy to avoid stress. That may explain why some people are always behind on projects, appointments, etc. Human beings will do anything to avoid stress – even if it comes at the cost of more stress later.

I personally get very annoyed when I get in a procrastination state because it is self-feeding. If I get behind on a single task or project, I have to delay other tasks to get it completed. It can be a downward spiral that is hard to dig out of.

Check out this list of five things you can do to help you out of that procrastination deathtrap:

  1. Be more precise in your small goals. Most people live in a very general world. They plan to get something done tomorrow, next week, etc. Stop doing that. Pick a very precise time on your calendar and commit to working on ‘that thing’ at that time.
  2. Be willing to live with “done > perfect”. A lot of people I know live in the constant state of getting ready to get ready. They are waiting for the perfect time, perfect amount of money, or perfect set of training before they embark on a new effort. There is no perfect anything. There is “as good as it is right now”. Stop waiting for perfection before attacking a task you want to avoid. If it’s something you don’t know how to do, search online. Someone has likely done it before and has written out step-by-step instructions online that you can follow.
  3. If something is painful, get it done sooner than later. If you keep postponing something you don’t want to do because you find it painful or annoying, realize that it is not going to get LESS painful or annoying the more you put it off. Take control and knock that task out ASAP. It’s better to plan it and plow your way though than to wait for it to become a non-optional emergency. How painful will it be then?
  4. Make it hard to procrastinate. This is especially if you work in front of a computer. Put roadblocks in your way that make you have to work really hard to put off working. There are countless utilities for your computer that can block your time wasting activities on and offline. If you are someone like me who lives a lot online the first thing you should do is install RescueTime. This will help you start measuring the time you are wasting. You can then install different browser plugins that block you visiting time-wasting websites and force you to focus. As I type this right now, I have “StayFocusd” and “Kill Facebook Newsfeed” Chrome extensions installed. The former gives me a limited amount of time on social media, news, viral, and other time-wasting sites each day. The latter blocks me from seeing my general Facebook news feed and allows me to hop in and only check messages specific groups that I want to monitor.
  5. Build in small rewards for small goals. Do you have any BHAGs (Big Hair Arse Goals) ? I know I have several. And they may not happen for five or ten years. When you are strategic in your life and plan for the long-term, you may get discouraged a long the way. I am sure you know that your long-term should be broken down into several short-term goals. Be sure you celebrate the short-term goals. Make a big deal about them. The celebrations will lift your spirits and remind you of the coming BHAG. It’s hard to celebrate BHAG every day when you won’t see it for months or years. But if your goal is to lose 20 pounds and you lose five, make a big about it in your life. Celebrate all successes.

Share your favorite tactic from the five above

[Tweet “Be more precise in your small goals”]

[Tweet “Be willing to live with Done > Perfect”]

[Tweet “If something is painful, get it done sooner than later”]

[Tweet “Make it hard to procrastinate”]

[Tweet “Build in small rewards for small goals”]

Click here to read the original article.

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Overcoming Fear
Personal Development, Staying Healthy

Richard Branson Lessons: Fear, Resistance, Procrastination

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What You Better Learn from Richard Branson about Overcoming Fear, Resistance, and Procrastination

Richard Branson sure is a cool dude. And he’s done some incredible stuff in his life.

He’s also had some stupid, massive failures.

Have you ever heard of Virgin Cola? Their bottles were called “The Pammy” because they were shaped like Pamela Anderson.
Really, Richard? You are the same guy that started Virgin Airlines?
How about Virgin Brides? Yikes. (Yes, that’s him in the picture dressed up as a bride.)

Richard Branson as a Virgin Bride
Richard Branson as a Virgin Bride

It’s easy to laugh at when he swung and missed, though we all know he’s the man. And a big reason is that he doesn’t let a few whiffs stop him from going balls in the next time. And the next time. And the next time.
How can you have the same go-for-it attitude that he does? Simple. The next time you want to make a change in your life—want to start something new—you Experiment.

Why Experiment?

Simple: we procrastinate because we don’t want to mess up. We are afraid of not being perfect.
(Want to know the psychological reasons why you procrastinate? Watch the video here.)

See, the purpose of an experiment is to learn. The great thing about it is that the only way you fail in an Experiment is not to conduct it. Because I don’t know about you, but I learn best by doing. There is no substitute for experience.
When someone learns to fly, he reads. Then he Experiments in a flight simulator. Then he Experiments by flying with someone else. Then he is ready to go solo.

Our brain gets freaked out when we want to make a change or try something new—especially if it’s something big.
When you want to make a change, how can you break that change down into the smallest experiment you can?
If you decide you want to run your first marathon, you might then become paralyzed with fear: Do I have the right shoes? Do I run before or after work? Am I ready to commit to running five times a week for the next fifteen weeks?
You don’t have to answer any of these questions. All you have to do is perform an Experiment this next week. Try two Experiments: run once, for 15 minutes before work, and run again for 15 minutes after work. See which one fits best in your schedule. See if you need better shoes. Is it easier to commit to running almost every day for the next four months, or twice over the next week?

This concept works so well that I’ve written a whole book about it, which has become a #1 bestseller in both the Creativity and Business Leadership Training categories. It is a modern business fable, where a business owner—who wants to make changes in his personal and work life—meets a coach, who walks him through these changes through a variety of Experiments.

Take the next project you have. Is it a book? Starting a business? Getting healthy? What is the tiniest step you can take? Do that step. Then evaluate; what worked? What didn’t? What is your next step from there?
What do you think Richard Branson’s next Experiment will be? Virgin Butter? Virgin Flypaper?
Doesn’t really matter, because he’s still the coolest guy in the world. And he’s going to keep Experimenting until he dies. And his Experiments change the world.

Will yours?

Sharp-Dressed Michael Anderson
Sharp-Dressed Michael Anderson
R. Michael Anderson, M.B.A., M.A., is a global speaker, radio show host, and author who specializes in leading businesspeople to happier lives. In fact, his new book, The Experiment, has reached the #1 Bestselling spot on Amazon in the Self-Help -> Creativity and the Business -> Leadership Training categories.
If you are stressed, overwhelmed, or burned out, visit ExperimentToday.com NOW to start reclaiming your life!

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Never Allow Fear To Score More Touchdowns Than You Do
Attitude Adjustment

Never Allow Fear to Score More Touchdowns Than You Do

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Fear should never be allowed to hinder one in life. In reality, fear is nothing but, “false evidence appearing real”. That means that if you dissected the fear that a person had, then you would find no reason for it. A friend of mine told me recently of how she used to be afraid of dogs, until she was the age of 33. When my friend was a child, her aunt told her of a story of being bitten by a dog when she too was a little girl. She even showed my friend her wound. My friend became so terrified of dogs from that point on. It was almost as if my friend had “inherited” this fear from her aunt. Never had my friend been bitten or had any reason to be afraid of dogs, but she carried this fear for years. She assumed she would always be that way until one day she dated a guy who owned a Rottweiler. At first she experienced those same dreaded reactions that she always would when she came into contact with a dog. However, this time she soon realized that, although the dog was huge, there was no cause for her being intimidated by him…he was just a 150 lb. puppy, who happened to be extremely loveable. From that point on, her fear of dogs vanished.

Stuck in the rut of fear

It is ridiculous to think that a person could actually be fearful based on something that happened to someone else, right? Not really. This occurs every day. Too often, people are afraid to start a business, write and publish a book, go back to school or of making an investment in their future. Not because they have tried before, but because they knew someone else who tried and failed. Or you have the other end of the spectrum where a person may actually be afraid to succeed. Either case is a tragedy in life and could result in a person being stuck in their own world.

Fear causes you to lose

No matter how you look at it, you can never win with fear. Fear can be just as devastating as a plague, if allowed to exist, and has the potential to spread to so many other areas in life. That’s why it is vital to face fear head on. In life, we should never allow fear to score more touchdowns than we do, if we expect to win. And we do. Instead, deal with your fears before they become so detrimental to progression in life.

The Solution?

How do we deal with fear? Although not always a simple answer, some steps include:

  • Acknowledge that your are afraid
  • Find your center or calm state – breathing slowly and deeply
  • Determine the underlying cause of the fear
  • Access whether the fear is real or perceived
  • Imagine how you would react without the fear
  • Make a conscious effort to overcome it by acting as if there were no fear
  • Track your progress as you step out of your comfort zone
  • Remember to celebrate success – no matter how small
  • Should you begin to feel fear again, repeat steps above
  • Seek professional help (if necessary)

Follow these steps with each fear that you may have. Make sure that you have conquered one before moving to another. Progress may not come overnight. Each person is different. Do not hesitate to seek professional help if your fear is deeply rooted and/or a result of trauma.
Know that you are predestined to win in life, not lose to fear. Refuse to give up or give in. Make the choice to tackle your fears today!

 

Shonda Murphy Headshot
Shonda Murphy Headshot

Shonda R. Murphy is a Life Coach at Divine Direction Life Coaching and a Financial Planner for Primerica, Inc. As an advocate of financial literacy, she thrives on helping individuals through life transitions as they get back on track, especially in the area of their finances.

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Your Soul Sucking Job
Personal Development

Three Ways to Feel Better About Your Soul-Sucking Job

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Dear Aspiring Entrepreneur, You’re Doing It Wrong

You’re an entrepreneur. A go-getter. A world changer. A starter-upper. The only problem is you’re still working for someone else, for now. You’re saving money, trying to cut expenses, getting up at 5 am, sharing the “master plan” with friends and family. You watch the minutes tick tock by, put in as little effort as possible, and then sprint home to get back to work on your side business. Many, if not most, entrepreneurs start hustling while still employed for someone else. That’s not the issue. The issue is that successful entrepreneurs realize that no matter where they are employed, they are working for themselves.

If you really want to achieve your goal of going out on your own, it’s time to figure out a way to leverage your current situation. Even if you have reached the ceiling at the company. Even if your boss is worse than Darth Vader. Even if you’re surrounded by complainers, coasters or haters. How? From now on, your day job is:

1 – Your Step Ladder

I know how hard it is to stay motivated on projects at work when your heart and brain want to be shaping your business into reality. But what if you saw every challenge at work as an potential resume builder in order to land a better job. Yes, another job, but a better one. A raise would allow you to put more into savings and pay down your debt faster. A company with a better reputation or higher visibility gets your name in front of more eventual-potential-customers. Plus, establishing yourself as someone who is moving, shaking and getting promoted in your industry easily translates into momentum for the launch of your own brand.

2 – Your Practice Field

When is the last time you went over and asked a friend in accounting what they were tackling that day? Or if you’re an accountant, when is the last time you went and asked someone in marketing how they come up with creative content? Remember you will be ALL of the departments when you launch your venture. Learn as much as you can all day everyday. If your boss ticks everyone off, what can you learn for your future employees? If the company loses a large client or giant product order, why? How can you make sure you don’t make that mistake?

3 – Your Personal Gym

I know, I know, similar to practice field, but hear me out. Practice fields are situational, but you, at the gym, that’s personal. Even though working on our passions is the most fulfilling, we don’t have to let our entrepreneurial muscles atrophy for 40 hrs a week, we can use that time! Take a look around your workplace and try and find holes to fill or problems to solve. Creativity takes practice. Staying laser focused takes practice. Innovation takes practice. Effective problem solving takes practice. The more you “work out” at your job, the more prepared you’ll be to do the heavy lifting for your own brand.

Remember, you’re working for you now. Make every hour count, and soon you’ll no longer be counting down the hours!

Kelsey Humphreys
Kelsey Humphreys

Kelsey Humphreys is the author of GO SOLO: How to Quit the Job You Hate and Start a Small Business You Love and an emerging authority on the subjects of branding, marketing, entrepreneurship and personal development. After starting her career as a graphic designer, her passion for those subjects led her to become the Associate Creative Director at one of Oklahoma’s largest advertising agencies. She then landed an international client and was able to quit her dream job for her dream; starting her own business. Now she speaks, consults, coaches, and writes to help other multi-passionate entrepreneurs avoid her mistakes and launch a solo business they’ll truly love.

Humphreys lives in Oklahoma City with her high school sweetheart husband, their daughter, and two feisty dogs. Follow Kelsey on twitter @kelseyhumphreys

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Believe in your boat
Attitude Adjustment

I Dare You To Believe

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Believe it. Believe it with your heart and soul. Believe it with every fiber of your being. Believe that you have a calling and that you will climb, crawl and jump over anything to meet your calling. Believe that you will have pain, setbacks, and times when it feels like the world wants to do everything it it’s power to get in the way of your calling. The wounds and damage are part of the journey. Don’t dwell on them. Welcome them and embrace them as part of the process of life.

But don’t ever stop believing. Fabricate in your mind a clear vision of what your particular success looks like. It could be a health transformation. It could a wealth transformation. Or it could be getting a job that makes you so happy that would do it for free. Whatever your particular version of success id, believe and it imagine it in detail. Only then will you be table to take the momentous steps you need to take to fight the battle towards your dreams and successes.

Will you dare to believe?

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Three Ways To Improve Your Self-Confidence
Personal Development, Self-Confidence

Three Mindset Changes To Improve Your Self-Confidence

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The world loves a person with self-confidence.

We will gladly give our time, attention and money to a person who knows what they are talking about. Or at least thinks they know they are talking about. But self-confidence does not come naturally to a lot people. I think our upbringing drastically affects whether we leave the nest with a ton of self-confidence or very little.

Self-confidence is the ability to believe and display the attitude that you know what you are doing. It is a virtue desired by employers, mates and friends. The world is a beautiful balance of people who have varying levels of self-confidence. The people on one end of the scale are fearful that they are not good enough or don’t know enough to open up and share their wisdom. The people on the extreme other end of the scale of self-confidence are brash, arrogant, and generally unpleasant to be around. If you can find a way to be confident but be just below the extreme, the world will love you and eat you up. They will applaud you and live vicariously through you. And as a bonus –  they will pay good money to be around you and learn from you.

Here are the mindsets that you should remember when you are not quite sure of what you are getting ready to tackle – or even if you should be doing it:

  1. Do less wishing and comparing, and more DOING. If you spend a lot of your time watching people that are at the level of life where you want to be, you will become jealous very fast (click here to see my post of being jealous of successful people) . It OK to take some time to study how they got to that level. But I would recommend severely restricting that time. Self-confidence comes doing something that you’ve never done before. Spend more time working on completing things you think are impossible. Start small. Try to make incremental steps in things that are just a little bit outside of your comfort zone. Then keep expanding those. Keep finding ways to put yourself in situations that make you a little uncomfortable.  Want to write a book? Quit reading about how to write a book and start writing. Keep it down to just a paragraph a day. Eventually your speed will increase and before you know it you will have a completed book (something that I am working on right now too). The same rules goes for being in sales, for public speaking, or for any of the other numerous areas where people don’t feel sure of themselves. Don’t shoot for the big improvements. Work on the small ones and you will wake up one day and be sitting next to that guy/gal who has the same self-confidence that you don’t think you have.
  2. Know that you will make mistakes and fall. It is 100% guaranteed. But taking non-physical risks will rarely kill you. I believe that some people suffer from a lack of self-confidence due to the fear of failure and embarrassment. I will tell you firsthand that both will happen, and neither one has ever killed me. When you attempt to do something that you are not confident you can complete, understand that you just might crash and burn. But your desire for achievement needs to be just a little higher than your fear.  The fear will never (and should never) go away. The fear is what helps you plan and protect yourself. But the fear should not stop the forward progress.
  3. Believe that there are plenty of people want to know what you know and be where you are. Several years ago I gave a presentation at a Toastmasters conference that talked about to get paid for your knowledge. ( If you’d like to see the video click here ) . One of the first topics I covered is believing that you have something to offer to the world. Whether you are 20 or 90, you’ve experienced some things that nobody else around you knows about – but they want to know what you know . I made the audience yell “I believe” several times because I wanted to cement that in their head.  You have to believe in your story and your wisdom. It may seem very trivial to you. But it has shaped you in ways that you will carry to your grave. Be confident in your wisdom and your history because someplace out there, you have a fan that is waiting to hear from you.

Bonus: When you see people that appear “self-confident” and wish you were more like them, remember this: They may have the same fears and insecurities that you do. Fifteen minutes before you saw them they may have been sitting in their car doing self-talk to get up the courage to do what you are seeing them do now. Some of the people that appear confident in public are terribly insecure in private.  They are just really good actors, and their desire for accomplishment is greater than their fear of failure.

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Don't Worry About Being The Best
Attitude Adjustment

Don’t Worry About Being The Smartest Guy In The Room

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Don’t worry about being talented or having the skill to do something that you really want to do. That has never mattered to successful people. The only thing that has mattered is the killer drive to create something amazing, and then figuring out how to do it along the way.

Confession: I’m not a great writer, amazing speaker, or the most astute business owner. I regularly screw up – and some of them have been pretty big. But I am committed to standing up after every fall, wiping myself off, and starting the climb again. I may be a passionate person, or I may just be too dumb to know when to give up. Only time will tell.

Don’t give up . I swear happiness and success are worth every bead of sweat dropped and every tear shed.

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