Robin Hensley's Raising the Bar, Podcast 2

Staying on target/achieving your goals

How often have you set a goal but failed to achieve it?

Hello, I'm Robin Hensley and this week we will be continuing our conversation about goal setting. Last time, we talked about how to set realistic, meaningful goals for your business and your life. I gave you some ideas for how to set aside time to plan, how to focus on what is most important and how to ask yourself ten simple questions that can dramatically change the way you set your goals.

In this week's program, we'll be looking at how to build a plan to turn your goals into results. We already know that:

•    People that set goals achieve more than those that don't,
•    Written goals with an action plan produce the best result and that
•    The rewards for goal setting go far beyond the goals themselves. You will feel more confident and capable when you take the time to plan because
•    Planning how you will achieve your goals is what drives results.

In their book, "Periodization: 12 Weeks to Breakthrough", Brian Moran and Michael Lennington tell us that "It's not what you know; it's not even who you know; it's what you implement that counts."

In our last podcast, I introduced you to Jinny Ditzler's Best Year Yet program for setting annual goals. We are accustomed to setting goals on an annual basis and that process is useful in creating a twelve-month vision for defining results. To actually implement those goals, we have to shift our thinking away from a seemingly endless year where there is plenty of time to a narrower focus that reinvents what a year could look like.

If you are an athlete or have ever trained as one or know someone who has, then you know that athletes train on short time-tables, on what I call a rolling forward schedule.

What I mean is that they typically break their training goals down into twelve-week chunks.  There is no year, as we know it; there is only the twelve-week period they are in right now. This system, called Periodization, began as a technique to dramatically improve athletic performance. With its emphasis on focus, concentration and overload on a specific skill or discipline. Eastern European athletes were the first to apply this technique in their Olympic training in the 70's. Lance Armstrong and his U.S. Postal Racing Team used the principles of periodization in training prior to his first Tour de France win. Brian Moran and Michael Lennington, authors of the book I mentioned earlier, have taken those training principles and adapted them into a system they call Strategic Breakthrough.

It is their system for focusing on the critical factors that drive production and life balance that I use for myself and in the work I do with my clients through my Raising The Bar coaching practice. It is the best one I have found for increasing the likelihood that your goals will produce real, tangible results.

The Strategic Breakthrough process is a structured approach that fundamentally changes the way you think and act. By creating urgency around those "critical few" activities that drive a healthy and successful business or career, you will be executing core activities daily and weekly at a pace that is sufficient to reach your long-term goals.

I love that idea and, again, have found it to be an exceptionally effective method to consistently achieve results. Three things have to happen, however, for the process to work for you:

•    First, you must change your mind about time,

•    Second, you must orient your plan around principles and disciplines that are aligned with what it will take to achieve your objectives and

•    Third, you must be willing to take the actions you need to take, even when you don't feel like it.

But, as you approach the planning process, remember that only you can decide your degree of commitment. That commitment will be measured by the results you obtain.

Because it may be a totally new concept to you and because it is so important to your success, I'm going to spend a little more time on the process of periodization.

Periodization throws out the idea of annualized plans. A year becomes a 12-week period. The year-end push we all succumb to, therefore, disappears. There is no year-end. There are no quarters. There is only this 12-week period. Under an annualized planning process, you can afford a week or more here and there where you don't execute or hit your target. But under a 12-week system, your wiggle room for bad weeks virtually disappears. How many bad weeks can you have in a 12-week year and still hit your goal? And, as Moran and Lennington say, "If you can't afford a bad week, then each day of the week automatically becomes more important." Periodization narrows the focus to daily and weekly, which is where execution occurs. The periodization process asks you to really drill down to executing what is most important to achieving your goals and doing those things first.

OK. If the periodization process appeals to you and you'd like to use it to change your results right now, visit the Strategic Breakthrough website at strategicbreakthroughs.net. There you will find a web-based program that will help you divide your goals into 12-week and 1-week segments and they will even send you a reminder each week of what you were to accomplish and score your results based on the concept that, if you achieve 85% of each week's goals, you will achieve your overall goals. This last point is an important one. Accountability is a critical part of your goal planning exercise. Whether it is through a web-based program, working with a partner or a coach, it is the regular, scheduled system of accountability that will keep you energized and moving forward.

Your action items for today that will lead you to success tomorrow include:

1.    Read "Periodization: 12 Weeks to Breakthrough" which is available for purchase at strategicbreakthrough.net.

2.    Attend a Periodization seminar to learn more. This is a pricier solution and one you may not need but if you have a track record of consistently missing your targets, it might be a good investment for you.

3.    Use the Strategic Breakthrough website to set up your goals and receive weekly reports and

4.    Keep your plan where you can see it, every day.

Finally, let's wrap up what we talked about in this week's program on Staying On Target To Achieve Your Goals.

1.    It is your plan for achieving your goals that drives results.

2.    You can create a greater sense of urgency about your goals by changing your mind about time. Shifting from an annual to a 12-week year will dramatically alter how you execute on a daily and weekly basis.

3.    Your results will reflect your degree of commitment.

4.    Doing what is most important every day, whether you feel like it or not, will increase your chances of success.

5.    Accountability, whether through an online system, a partner or a coach, will help you stay focused and consistent in your efforts and

6.    Keeping your plan in plain site will remind you everyday of what you are striving for.

As Dr. Nathaniel Branden, pioneer in the psychology of self-esteem, says, "A goal without an action plan is a day dream." Daydreams become reality when you plan your work and work your plan.

Until next time, I'm Robin Hensley.