Moxie Living: Courage and Confidence

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Make Your Goals Actionable

January 23 Dawn

Goal, Plan, Action

Now that you’ve written down your goals specifically.

Chunked them into smaller goals and written your plan.

It’s time for massive (fearless) action!

If there is something you can do now (this second) towards a goal, go and do it. Take the time. This post isn’t going anywhere, that is taking action, I’ll still be here when you come back.

Now, there are some that say ‘all successful people take action’, I say all ‘motivated people take specific actions, which leads to successful outcomes‘.

Why do I say that?

Because some people take plenty action, but they aren’t taking the right action, in the right way at the right time.

Or they toe dip, play about in the baby pond, they research their goals, find what they need to apply and then do nothing.

Assuming that you have written down your goals ‘the what’, and you have identified the ‘why, who, where, when and how’, it’s time to act.

It’s Time for Boldness

Your action may include a period of discovery, learning, researching, discussing, identifying, learning and adding to your actions to take. Some people can get caught up on the ‘prepare’ stage, when in fact what they need is to move and motivate themselves further.

For example, assume you want to change career, you have identified ‘key’ people you want to talk to. You could have a list of names you’re sitting on. Yet, for some reason you aren’t doing nothing with it. The action you may need to take is connecting with these people via email, phone or social network.

Action, especially when heading into the unknown can be a little daunting. But your plan is worthless, if you don’t take the steps to apply it.

Also many get stuck in the planning and preparing part. They spend a long time ‘thinking’ and ‘talking’ about it, and don’t see the results because the plan is not moving, there is no energy to it. Thinking and talking is fine, however there has to come a point of action.

For example, assume you’re wanting to lose weight.

You have set the goal to attend a gym or a class. You are taking massive action on the healthy eating part, but the gym goal is sitting there doing nothing. Review the goal again, ask yourself what is stopping you taking action on this step? Is it a fear of visiting a gym for the first time? Do you feel ashamed or embarrassed to attend? Worried others will look at you? Money?

If you do this process, you may find you need to review and evaluate the original goal. Go back to the ‘who, what, why, where, when’ is there anything you can add to the goal to ensure that action will take place?

Gaining Momentum

Energy is built from energy.

As soon as you start to take action, you will probably see yourself getting quicker and taking more. Why? It’s all these small steps that build momentum.

If you’ve already laid the groundwork, it’s important to focus on productive actions; the actions that will carry the most power, the actions that will inspire the greatest results.

Additionally, you should identify action steps to be taken daily, weekly, and monthly.

Remember, goal achievement is a process – you can’t take action just once and hope it works.

Most goals will require consistent effort, specific action steps taken day after day, week after week, month after month! Identify the things you can do on a regular basis to keep your plans moving forward.

Daily actions are usually small to moderate in scale but hold the power of duplication and accumulation. The more you do them, the more effective they become.

Weekly actions are usually a bit larger in scale, take a little longer to complete, and involve an element of risk. They are usually the most proactive in the sense that they help you face your fears and push forward determinedly. They would include things like releasing your creations to the public, or increasing your business marketing efforts by attracting attention to your products or services. These bolder actions usually bring about bigger results.

Monthly actions are things you do to keep yourself on track, like evaluate your progress and readjust your plans if necessary. Monthly actions can also include extraneous activities not vital to your goal except in peripheral ways. This can include networking, expanding your market reach, working on your personal development, reading, learning, researching, etc.

Make a list of the most productive actions you determine should be done daily, weekly and monthly.

It’s important to note that you are not setting a schedule with this exercise; you are simply identifying key, productive action steps that you can take on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. Don’t get caught up wondering how you can find time to do all this, or whether a certain task should be done daily or weekly. Simply put down a general idea of the most productive actions that you can think of. You can always add to this list or change it later on.

Break Down Your Goals Into Doable Chunks

January 23 Dawn

You’ve probably heard this ‘how do you eat an elephant?’

Answer: one bite at a time. (Unless you’re veggie like me, we wouldn’t want to eat an elephant. Marrow? Slab of Tufu?)

Anyhoo…

Goals and chunking, this process is so simple. You take the large goal and break it down into smaller sizes, which are more manageable.

Why?

It makes it easier, more fun, motivating (as you tick of the smaller goals on route to your larger goal).

Every large goal is made up of smaller parts.

Sometimes these smaller parts are different facets of a bigger goal, and sometimes they are simply identical, measured increments of the big goal.

For instance:

A goal of being confident in social situations, can include smaller goals, or clear steps that can be carried out once or repeated over time.

You may include: visit a new place every week for 12 months, join a class or do a little volunteering. You may choose to seek coaching or attend a confidence building class, use hypnotherapy. You may enlist other people to your goal (if they are willing) and attend low key social situations, with them beside you for the first few time. You may read about building confidence, buy tapes or join a support group.

Again, each goal or ‘chunk’ would work really well with a timeframe, commitment and action.

It also give you space to look at what is working and what isn’t, and to decide if you need to change tactics or review the goal.

A goal of changing career, could include researching possibilities, speaking to individuals carrying out the role you wish to carry out, a time spent learning knowledge, working on your CV or researching possible employers. You may include family and friends and build a contact list or spend time with a careers advisor.

These are all part of the larger goal, but breaking them down or chunking them makes them easier to work on.

Of course some goals won’t include chunking. They won’t require that much detail. You may have already done a lot of the leg work and research.

For each goal you have written, try and chunk them up into 8 or 10 parts. Apply the action to take, the timetime and commit.

Goal Setting: Plan For The Worst, Expect the Best

January 22 Dawn

The WORST!

Okay, I’ll be gentle with ‘ya, let’s change it to ‘plan for the best, expect the unexpected’.

Let’s assume you’ve kicked off on a goal and things are going great, everything is going to plan. Then for whatever reason you slam into a literal brick wall. Something happens which you didn’t plan for. You didn’t see it coming.

If this has happened to you before, you may have lost motivation or drive because the brick wall seems like such a large obstacle in your path.

As much as we’d like to hope that things will always go according to plan, we know better.

Life is not planned.

We can’t expect that the entire universe and all the energy bouncing around in it is going to sit in alignment with what we want. If that sounds a little woowoo to you, read this (it’s a little woo-ier to some, but you’ll get it, and clearly explains what that means.)

The goal, for the goals is to always expect the best, but to have covered all bases. That means at least spending time on working out the answers to ‘what would I do if … happened?’

Call it the back up plan, the contingency, the other route. Whatever suits you.

Having a “Plan B” for every step of your journey can save you a lot of time, not to mention frustration!

Now, Plan B is not ‘if this doesn’t work, then I’ll do this’. The goal is the same. The different route to it is plan B!

Imagine the difference between feeling stuck because your path is blocked, or calmly switching gears and moving to Plan B. It can make or break the fulfillment of your goals.

I love the story of the train driver who comes to a broken tree convering the railway line. The driver doesn’t keep banging into the tree, he has to think of other ways to get moving again. He could remove the tree, ask for help, reverse and find another route. It sometimes isn’t the preferred route, but he’s committed to getting the passengers to their destination, even if it means adding a little extra time to the journey.

It’s easy to forget that there are numerous paths leading to any desired outcome.

While we might be attracted to one path over another, ultimately the outcome is the most important thing, right?

In order to ensure momentum, take a few minutes to prepare an alternate plan for each part of your goal. Focus not only on alternate paths to the final goal, but alternate activities for each of your action steps.

Here is a simple way to identify viable alternate activities: as you review each step, consider the question,

“What would I do if this step or activity was not possible?”

Goals and Mindset

January 22 Dawn

By now you should have a clear, specific, detailed bee-u-tiful plan for achieving your goals.

You should know exactly what you want, have a solid idea of the smaller components that make up your larger goal, have a list of specific action steps to take, and a general expectation about both the completion of your activities and the culmination of your goal.

You’ve even done your homework and formed alternate plans so you won’t get sidetracked if something goes wrong.

How could you fail with a plan like this?

You couldn’t . . . unless your own thoughts begin to work against you.

There are three key things to keep in mind if you want to stay focused and motivated.

Commit to your goal

Commit to keep working toward what you want no matter how challenging it may seem at times.

Commit to ignore your inner critic (or actual criticism from people in your life) and push on, in spite of any negative comments.

Commit to yourself that you won’t give up, no matter what obstacles you encounter.

Without this level of commitment, you will find it very easy to slack off, get distracted, or give up altogether.

Take action

The most detailed and effective plan is worthless if you never put it into action.

Make a promise to yourself that you will take action immediately and consistently, despite any feelings of fear or hesitation.

Remember that your results are dependent upon the intensity and frequency of your actions. If you want big results, take big actions. If you don’t mind smaller results while you’re building up your confidence, then start with smaller actions. But ACT.

Let go

Accept that you aren’t always going to have complete control of external events and circumstances.

Let go of the ‘instant’ mentality, some things do take time, that’s life.

Let go of forcing things to happen, focus on the action, follow your plan and keep your eyes open. You may want to change a goal, or set of in a different direction. That’s fine too.

Let go of comparing yourself to others, admire is fine, aspire is sure way to lose you!

Let go of perfectionism. Focus on your own efforts, rather than the ‘life’ of others.

Let go of control, take action.

Goal Setting – Get Really, Really Specific

January 22 Dawn

We could begin with the ‘same old same old’ question, what do you want?

Yawn!

Isn’t that question a nightmare to answer?

Beegeezoh, most of us can’t even think about what to have for tea most nights.

Yet, folks claim they want a better job, better car, nicer house, more loving relationships, life of no stress, happier children, better sex, more money, greater freedom, a lovely garden, house in the country…yada yada yada.

And there is a problem with the vague statements. Em, they’re too vague!

Vague – Adjective

Definition: not clear, not expressed or explicitly stated. Not known established, confirmed or determined, not enough thought or understanding

So vague goals may look something like this:

‘I’d like to lose a bit weight’
‘I fancy a new career’
‘I want to go back to college’
‘I’d like more money’

We’d never ask an estate agent, ‘Find me house please’, we probably wouldn’t arrive at Mickey D’s drive through and say, ‘I’ll have food’, or go into a libary and ask ‘May I have any book to borrow?’

So what about this getting specific.

Complete opposite to vague, it means setting goals that are exact, defined, concrete, definite, fixed, with 100% certainty.

And to do this really easily, we need to ask specific questions of ourselves…

What do I want specifically
Where do I want it specifically
How will I get it specifically
Who (if others are involved or affected) do I need specifically
When do I want it by specifically
Why do I want specifically

Here they are in detail:

What: this should identify the “meat” of your goal. What you want to accomplish?

Where: location, if applicable (like getting a job in your local area or moving to a new area).

How: you may have a preference as to “how” events will unfold (this may not always be within your control, but a having a general expectation is good).

Whom: if your goals involve others, you’ll want to highlight your expectations.

When: a general timeline for the fulfillment of your goals.

Why: your reasons for wanting to achieve your goals.

Move Towards Pleasure or Away From Pain

Most people have a preference to one of the above.

However in goal setting, especially for motivation, it becomes easier if you can focus on the benefits of achieving your goal, rather than the focus being on what you don’t want or giving up. (That’s important that line, because it’s in bold and underlined!)

For example, assume you wanted to lose weight. This goal is ‘technically’ simple (if we weren’t human!), you eat healthy, in proportions that aren’t excessive and exercise to reduce and maintain the weight.

Yeah, easy, however we ‘fail’ more often than succeed because we feel we are ‘giving up’ the food we love, or think we’ll miss the biscuits and treats, or how will we live without certain foods, ‘course we aren’t going to feel that pain!

Giving up is painful. Focus on the Gains.

The truth is though, we never have to give anything up.

Taking the weight example above: In proportions that aren’t excessive doesn’t mean give up, if you have 2 bags of crisps a day, can you make the goal specific to reduce it to one? Or one every other day? You’ll get to the same result but obviously you’ll have to calculate your timescales appropriately.

Another example could be ‘I want more money’, again vague and non specific.

Making it specific may read ‘I want to have £10,ooo savings by the end of the year so that (benefit) I can afford to reduce my hours at work for a year and return to college one day a week. This will give me the qualification I need to change careers in two years time. By changing careers I’ll be able to spend more time with my family and free up time to pursue a part time business’

Key Point: Make The ‘What Do I Want’ Specific and With The Benefit

Clarity is vital, another reason vague doesn’t work is because it’s non emotive, the desire and motivation is pretty weak. And remember most give up their goals because they aren’t motivated enough to achieve them.

Plus vague is wishy washy, and confusing. You may forget what you are trying to achieve and get all confused and disappointed at the time it’s taking.

If you’re having trouble figuring out what you want, take the time to find out.

A few ideas…

Losing weight: most people don’t want to just lose weight. For some they want to feel good in their goals, feel sexy when making love, be able to wear a bikini, show their legs in a pair of shorts. For some they may want to lose weight to run a marathon or complete a life long challenge.

Building confidence: for some they want the confidence to speak in public and not feel shame, or go out on a night out and not feel like the ‘spare’ part or wall flower. Perhaps they want to change career or tell folk what they really think.

Stay open and dig deep. Keep asking yourself ‘what would that give me’ and repeat until you get to the core of why you want to set the goal in the first place.

Think about every area of your life and ask yourself what you would change if you could.

What would you add to your life, and what would you remove?

Once you are crystal clear about what you want to accomplish, put it into a neat, concise statement:

I want to achieve _________ [what]
at _________ [where]
by __________ [how]
by __________ [timeline]
with _________[other persons]
because ____________ [why].

How Do Beliefs Affect Our Levels of Confidence?

January 18 Dawn

Em, quite a lot, loads.

In fact, our beliefs just about shape us, they determine who we (think) we are, our behaviours, actions and results.

Let’s dive in, oh this is a longer post than usual, so get a cuppa of your favourite brew, I’ll hang on, I’ve already got mine.

Righty-o…

How much thought have you given recently to your beliefs? No, I don’t mean in the ‘navel gazing’ way!

Let me say this, your beliefs will either work for you or against you.

Nope ‘gonna say it twice it’s that important…your beliefs will either work for you or against you.

Quick clarification, so we’re on the same path, ‘beliefs are your truths, you’re convictions, you’re opinions on the way things are’.

Beliefs: Where do they come from?

Most of your beliefs are pretty well formed before you even think of yourself as independent little individuals, and they are handed down to you by your parents/carers, peers, teachers, society, media, basically anything or anyone one you experience in those first years alive.

And because we don’t know any different, we pretty much are like big sponges, we soak up everything in the world around us, and because we’re too young to evaluate the information (question it), we accept that the people around us (the people we trust, listen to, and look up to) aren’t BS us, and what they’re saying is right.

We soon learn that they are so very wrong, queue counselling and therapy!

Beliefs aren’t fixed, they can be changed.

When you adopt a belief as your own or personal ‘truth’, you unconsciously add further evidence to support the belief.

When your beliefs are challenged, or when someone questions your ‘truth’, your perceptions and interpretation of the world, you will defend the belief or you may begin to validate if the belief was right after all.

Beliefs become stronger (or wired) when you continually ‘search’ for and find evidence to support them, and even more so when you attach a feeling or emotional response to it.

Now, this is where it can become a little woowoo, but take a sip and read the following scenario and think about your life, and see if you can see how it fits for you.

A relationship example

Lets say for example, you’re in a relationship, you’re head over heels in love and dottyment of a fellow human being, and it doesn’t work out.

You get hurt. Stung. Dumped. Looked over. Passed up for another model. Painful, huh?

(*sigh*, back in a minute, away for a tissue)

Back, sorry!

And because of the intensity of that experience, you may think about it, a lot, a heck of a lot.

Confidence Building and Beliefs — That’s not me, I don’t look that Parisian!

You go through the grieving process (all endings have a grieving period) and as you do (to make you feel better) you start to question all the good and bad of the relationship.

You attach emotions to all the events that happened within it. And it may have been a perfectly healthy, happy, exciting relationship, it just wasn’t going to be long term. But you’re hurting remember and you’ll be sure to protect yourself.

You then talk to your friends and say ‘they did this and that’ and ‘they were horrible when’, they made me feel………..’ fill in the blank.

Beliefs Can Be Distorted

You keep going until not only have you distorted the truth about what the relationships, but you have also created enough momentum and belief evidence that ‘never again, all men/women are like that’.

Phew! That is what we call…drum roll… a sweeping generalisation.

Now, do this same process in other areas of your life you’ve basically got a workable little recipe to disaster.

Okay, some generalisations of the world around us are useful.

You enter a dark room and go to switch on the light. You are pretty confident that it will go on. Why? Because you have experienced it so many times before and it has almost worked every time. Apart from blown bulbs and power cuts. If we walk in front of a bus, we’ll get knocked over, see some beliefs are useful!

However, the problems start when you make generalisations about all areas of your life. These generalisations when adopted by you as the ‘truth’ become your beliefs.

Now, some of these beliefs can be so limiting they put a ceiling on what you can possibly achieve, including your confidence levels, success, goals and potential.

Let’s Take a Confidence Building Example

So, let’s say the end result you’re seeking is ‘confidence to be in any group’.

Let’s assume an event happened when you were little.

While at school one day ‘you froze’ when your teacher asked you a question. The room went quiet, you blushed, everyone looked at you. You shuffled your books, lost eye contact with the teacher; they proceeded to tut and sigh. What seemed like hours passed and then they hit you with the verbal ‘you SHOULD know this’. Which left you feeling horrible, stupid, useless, embarrassed in front of your peers. Snigger, snigger, snigger.

With work you can trace the route of a belief that is damaging to you

It got worse, you felt your breathing change, sweating, lost your memory, you physically were experiencing panic.

You had nowhere to go, run or hide.

You squeaked out a teeny ‘I don’t know’.

Then came a verbal belittling showdown from your ~~sadist~~…oops I meant to say teacher. The emotional pain associated with that event, you decide never to talk in class again!

You remember today that event in such detail because you attached such strong emotion to it…fear, shame, embarrassment and fright.

Bam! You had one event (a horrible one), attached painful emotion to it, that your belief is ‘I’m not confident in groups’.

One event can create a belief, is it enough evidence, however?

Years later you think ‘I must do something about this’. You hate speaking in groups, are shy in new company, get frightened when you have to make small talk. So you sign up for a class on ‘confidence’. (Oh, if it was with me, the following wouldn’t happen, I’d have asked you what you feared most. *Rubbing halo*)

On day one (remember you have done no work on changing the belief yet) and from that one event in the classroom years ago, you automatically are searching for more confirmation that groups and classrooms are ‘not for you’, even though you want to end the misery.

More chance you’ll feel what you felt than remember the event

The tutor asks you a question and instantly all the feelings, not the event from school, are back with you, you are back in the moment, experiencing what you felt all those years ago.

The tutor has no idea how you’re feeling or what happened in the past. Yet that one question is enough for you to add to your belief ‘all teachers are the same’, ‘teachers make you feel ashamed’ and they ‘put you on the spot’.

Here you are, in a group as an adult, yet you still hold the same feelings you had that day in class 2B!

Now, that’s two events that have happened, you get where I am going with this don’t you?

You decide that you are not strong enough or that you are confident to be in a group, that your belief was right.

The result, you create a stronger belief that groups are awful places to be and that you will avoid them at all costs, never to be in one again!

If we take this a bit further let’s think about where groups exist: we have teams, meetings, employment, social places, people that share the same hobbies. This list is never ending. The problem with this scenario is, if the feelings are so strong, you will apply the generalisations everywhere where groups exist and the beliefs will start to grow and limit you in all areas of your life.

In the What is Confidence post, I asked you ‘where in your life are you not confident’.

Ask yourself: what events in my life led me to believe this so called ‘truth’, where is my evidence, do I have enough evidence, is the belief I hold 100% the truth. As certain as I breathe?

Photo Credit (thank you) Jonny Goldstein Public Speaking Image