2011 Aspirations - Part One.

Some might balk that this post is late given that the date on the calendar is January 17^th.   However, I take goal setting very seriously.   I don’t think it is necessarily the beginning of a New Year that makes it the only time that goals need to be set.   New jobs, epiphanies and birthdays are all optimum times for looking hard in the mirror and finding ways to strive to be a better person. 

That being said, I do typically establish goals for the New Year.  I don’t call them Resolutions.   They are goals with measurement and steps.   I gave lip service to my goals in 2010 until June 16^th.   This date is now on my calendar as a day of a personal epiphany.   I looked into my soul and found the root of why so many goals on my annual list made them appear year after year.   I am delighted to be able to put together a list that is an evolution of what I can only say is a step forward.

1) Complete a Triathlon and learn how to spell it!   Last year, I really tackled the need to exercise more with developing a relationship with my road bike.  It drove a lot of other goals to completion as well.  Let’s face it, when you are working your tail off literally, you begin to care about what you put in to fuel the activity.   I also ran my first official 5K Road race on Thanksgiving morning with my rescue Brittany, Brodie.   I have no idea what my time was but it was a great high.   The next step is to train to complete a Triathlon this summer.  My weakness is getting into the pool for workouts.   Some subsets of this is to master the monkey of climbing hills on my bike and getting under a 10 minute mile over 3.2 miles.   See, I am not just interested in finishing but not being last! 

2) Tackle the clutter monster:  I hate clutter.  I hate the clutter especially caused by the clutter mail causes.   The inability dealing with it has resulted in bills being lost.   Missing a charge on a credit card that took a long time to clean up and spats with my husband.   Now, I am going to need some help from him to really tackle this one.  But I am ready.  This also moves into the idea of putting stuff away.   I am famous of leaving the vacuum out, not folding the laundry or leaving it in the basket (as a load is currently sitting).   I have a new mission statement.   “Put it away”.   Part of this goal is to work through a cleaning out process.  In reality, we have now been in the house for almost four years.  Time to clean out the clutter.  Closets, the basement, desk drawers, and bookshelves are all going to be under attack.   One small problem is that I am also going to try to use coupons and savings a lot more.  This is going to be a balance issue. 

3) Take my vitamins.   This one sounds weak.  I have tackled getting soda out of my diet for the most part.   I have been able to find a yogurt I like.  I am eating a least one piece of fruit a day.   Water is a staple in my day.   However, I can seem to choke down the pills daily.   I am seeing it as training for my old age. 

4) Coupons and grocery bill:  I am going to work on saving more at the cash register.   I have always been something of a brand whore and snob.    This means using coupons and paying attention to the grocery flyers.  It also means planning meals.   I am kicking and screaming not wanting to get the Sunday paper.  (more clutter)   I just never find coupons for items I use.   However, I do use coupons.  I need to get better about leveraging the free money out there for dinner out, dry cleaning, and not buying anything at a retail store like a Loft or otherwise without a sale or an offer.   I am going to try to track the savings and see how I do.   In reality, I would like to get the grocery bill under $100 a week.  There are two of us.   We do eat breakfast. lunch, and dinner, for the most part, at home.   It will take work.  I am close.  

I have a couple of other ones that are more personal and need to work on the professional goals as well.   However, I have also found that when the list of goals, aspirations or resolutions is too long.   It never happens.   By training for the race, I will continue with my healthy goals.  By working on the clutter and the grocery bill, the house will naturally be cleaner and it will also help me to focus on some financial goals.   I have also been able to identify what was holding me back from achieving these goals.   Wish me diligence, as it is not luck, but hard work that allows each of us to turn a milestone in our lives.

Goodwill and Good-bye

Over the years, I have written more than my fair share about goal setting, goal achievement, and have bemoaned not hitting the milestones I have set for myself.   This is typically with the personal slate of goals although the economy hasn't been so nice to the professional ones over the past couple of years either.    With 2010 slipping away into the record books, it hit me that next year that looming personal goal of weights to hit by the end of March, June, and September and a final weight on New Year's Eve wasn't going to be on the list for 2011.   It isn't that I don't still have an objective to shed a stone more or so.   It is that I am well formed in my habits at this point.   I think I need to be determined not to backslide but I have kicked the devil in the seat and have found my own personal salvation.  The best feeling I had today was sitting in the Goodwill donation drop-off line and realizing I had the back of the SUV filled with success.   I had about 5 garbage bags of my "fat" clothes ready for new owners.   Good bye fat clothes.  Good bye.....  

Look to your Bad Habits to Foster Your Goals

When helping many enterprises wrap their arms around a social strategy, I always try to get them to circle back to their business drivers or goals for embarking on a social roadmap.   If these aren’t in place it will be virtually impossible to arrive at results never mind deploy the correct social technology to succeed!

A blog post on Workshifting.com regarding “7 Habits That Derail Your Goals” by David Baeza really pushed me rethink goal setting process.   The definition of a goal by the Oxford Dictionary is “the object of a person's ambition or effort; an aim or desired result”.   This is critical in developing a social roadmap.  

My epiphany was: Goals are set to Rectify Bad Habits.   Goal setting, by nature, should be prefaced by a gut wrenching exercise to determine why this is a goal to start.  What aren’t you doing or what are you doing which is preventing the ideal nature of business nirvana?   We all have heard to death that “Goals need to be measureable.” Sure, okay… but does that make them achievable?   Think about a personal goal which continues to show up on the list in January year after year.  Some of the top personal goals every year are to lose weight, stop smoking, spend more time with family, exercise more…  you get the picture.   

Let’s look at this.   On your goal list is:  I want to lose 30 pounds this year.  Okay, that is:

1.     Attainable (given you have 30lbs to lose) with proper management and is less than a pound a week. 
2.     It can be measured by a scale
3.    It can be broken up into smaller goals that can be used as incentives along the way.  I want to lose 10 pounds by March 31^st.

What most people don’t do is look at really why they need to lose 30 pounds.  They may realize they don’t eat healthy or exercise or have an addiction to ice cream.  However, these are still symptoms rather than the root of the problem that is causing the issue.   You aren’t going to suddenly decide fruit is tastier and a craving rather than ice cream.  

Moving this into the professional realm.   Do you want to have better customer retention?  Okay great.  Your social strategy goal is to impact customer retention and increase your percentage by 10% over two years and drive incremental existing customer sales up by also 10%.   Lofty goals, my friend.  Lets put the goal analysis magnifying glass on it.

1.      Attainable: Yes, companies can improve customer retention by 10%
2.      It can be measured.  Sure I have 1000 customers how many of these are still customers in two years.
3.      It can be broken into smaller subsets

Here is the question…  Why are you having a problem with retention in the first place?  Better communication and listening to your customers on a 24/7/365 basis is certainly a step in the right direction just like joining a gym.   However, simply having a place to listen or work out is not going to get you to the goal.  For many, this is hitting bottom.  They have looked in the mirror and decided what is looking back at them isn’t the person or company they want to be in life.   If you are a company leader, is the organization really the best it can be?  Are you finally ready to implement changes that need to happen in order to make your customers more loyal or buy more from you?   Are you cultural ready?  

You may not realize the core of the problem.  Your customers probably understand it.  Social Technology can be a great mirror.  Painful for some.   Addicting to others.   So when you look in your corporate mirror are you seeing the Biggest Loser when they walk into get on the scale for the first time or at the finale?   Zappos.com, Ford Motor Company, American Express and others are addicted to looking in their social mirrors at themselves.  It is not a bad thing for you and others to like what you see.  

Success is not chance.  It is hard work with a bit of luck around the edges.   Social success is not easy or free.   Companies that are seeing success have dedicated the appropriate resources from a human resource, financial and cultural standpoint.   

Giving a Java Jump to your Motivation

Although my job has changed from proactively selling a product or service for a company back to selling people (me, myself and I), I have found many of the techniques which make me a successful sales professional have helped me to stay motivated in my career search. Everyone has down times and days. The call or email letting you know you were second choice at a position you were dying to get. The day you have to put your dog to sleep. Finding out yet another position has been put on hold. These have all happened in the past month. Yet, I need to stay motivated. Here are some of the tricks I use:

1) Daily goals: If you read this blog, you know my annual effort to establish and revisit goals for my professional and personal life. Most of those have gone firmly out the window this year. However, I am having success with the daily goals. Don't make your list too long but have a variety on there. Here are some of mine for today.

• Take Fiona for a Walk (done)
  
• Send Thank you notes for sympathy gift & yesterday's phone interview (done)
  
• Review job postings on Linked In (done - nothing interesting errr)
  
• Send out a tweet promoting myself and my skills (done and thank you to @mwalsh for the RT)
  
• Write a blog post (completing)
  

2) Have a Feel Good Play List: I have created a couple of play lists in iTunes that have music that make me feel great. I love Irish bar music for example. How can you be not motivated by a good jig like the Irish Rover? Another feel good selection for me is the soundtrack from Cocktail. The Hippy Hippy Shake, Kokomo, etc... love it.

3) Get some exercise: I like to go in the morning for a quick walk. Others might hit the gym or go for a bike ride... or simply dance to that play list like a fool in your living room.

4) Have a Work buddy: For the past five years, I have loved working from home. One of my key things I do when I feel like I can't possibly leave one more voicemail message is call my work buddy. We worked together ten years ago. We both have separate careers now but both work from a home environment. We use each other to motivate ourselves to make one more call or to read an email for tone etc. After five minutes on the phone with her, I am built up to attack the prospect mountain yet again!

5) Breathe and dial: Some of my best success has come after a huge rejection. I will say it is important to breathe first and put it behind you. Then make the next call or send the next email. Remember sales and job hunting is really about the numbers. If only 5% are buying or hiring in this economy, you may need to hear ninety-five rejections prior to the first yes.

6) Have a focal point: I have a picture in my office I took from the middle of the lake my Grandparents had a camp on in New Hampshire. I know every inch of the shore. The picture somehow centers me. For you, this might be a picture of your kids, pets or spouse.

7) Create a Motivational folder: Mine contains motivational quotes that were under the glass on my grandfather's desk (It is actually the same folder he had in his desk. Looking at the writing on it in his hand makes me smile and motivates me without opening it) , recommendations, emails from bosses that were complimentary, reviews, notes from friends and pictures of stuff I want.

8) Use your CRM System: This is something I am lost with out currently. I firmly believe that inputs equal outputs. I have always set up my CRM system to help me achieve my daily, weekly, monthly contact goals. I suggest talking to the most successful person that is in your profession and ask about their daily or weekly activity. For example, my VP when I started at DCI said that to be successful I needed to make 100 outbound attempts a week or 20 a day. Email didn't count back then. It worked. Today, I still use it as a measuring stick for throttling up or down my sales activity. A wise fisherman once told me the fish typically don't dump into the boat without being reeled in first.

9) Use a Notebook: Okay... huh... you just said to lean on your CRM System. Yes, I did. However, I also use a notebook to jot down notes from a meeting or call. Write down information when prospecting. It is sometimes helpful to flip back through to see someone you might have over looked, brainstorming new ideas, or just remembering past successful calls and meetings.

10) I am leaving this one blank... As I would like to learn from you. Please let me know what the tenth thing should be in your opinion.

Motivation

Quietly, I have determined to use the time I am facing unemployment to make some changes in my life that hopefully can be part of my future career whatever that my be moving forward. Some of this is a seesaw I do on a regular basis fighting to keep weight and fitness in line. I am rarely motivated by exercise more by profit and french fries.

My understanding is that it takes a full month of an activity to make it a habit. So I am going to list a couple of goals outside of my job search I am going to try to get in during the week:

1) A walk with the dogs. Only to be replaced by another physical activity. It must be at least twenty minutes
2) Drink 2 liters of water a day (oops I haven't started this yet today!)
3) Write 3 blog posts a week. (Sorry gang you are going to have to read along with me)

With that, I hope to knock a few pounds off and be a bit more attentive to the blog than I have been the last couple of months.

Goals are coming together My Wheel of Life

I haven't forgotten about setting goals. I have been thinking about them in the quiet moments of my day for weeks now. I finally have said out loud to two important men in my life, my husband and my boss. I want to write and set goals that I know deep inside myself can and will be achieved this year. In reflection of the 2008 list, I went through the motions of doing it. As a result, they got lip service. The result is I wasn't able to say I achieved my intended result.



Rob Vaughan, my boss at SelectMinds sent each of us a great exercise on giving points to goal or resolution categories called "The Wheel of Life" . They include: Family, Financial, Career, Social, Health, Mental, Spiritual, and Personal / Prestige. These equate to general areas relating back to personal happiness and success. In our discussion on the way into a client appointment yesterday, I found myself saying, "My primary objective is to set goals that are achievable and will encourage me to be a better person both professionally and personally by my own standards at the close of 2009" Here goes a quick sample of the goals I am still tossing around metrics and specifics for myself:



1) Health: I want to strive to be healthier. This means following doctors orders. Getting more physical activity. Eating smart. Taking my vitamins daily. Moisturizing! Finding positive outlets for disappointments and stress. If I am able to fine tune measurable actions to create better habits, this will stir results. I have been off to a great start this year with taking care of some nagging medical issues.



2) Family. Fiona needs to complete obedience training. I need to see my family more both my parents and cousins.



3) Spiritual - Last year I forced myself to read Eat, Pray, Love. I was surprised how much it impacted me. I would like to re read it and take notes and develop goals from it. Beyond this, I would like to do a bit of Church shopping. Although, I was brought up in the Congregational Church, it isn't aligned with my current philosophy and I don't agree with many of the edicts coming from the UCC Conference. Time to look around for a new spiritual home. I am thinking Church of England, perhaps or "Catholic light".



4) Social. For the past couple of years, adding new friends in Connecticut has been a goal. I have tried a ton of things. This year, I am going to relax this effort and concentrate on being a good friend to the people in my life already. Especially, those long lost friends from New England College I have connected with through Facebook. They were like family for four years. I am not losing them again.



5) Financial. For me, this one goes hand in hand with professional. First of all, I want to continue to build the savings account outside of my investments and 401K. Second, continue to be prudent about credit cards. Finally, I want to help others get on the path to financial success by assisting people in making smart decisions.



6) Career. I want to really have a successful sales year from a numbers stand point at SelectMinds. It is crucial to have a success here in spite of the economy. Beyond this, I want to be seen as a leader and an expect on Corporate Social Networking. I want to continue to educate myself and others by promoting the SelectMinds brand and my own personal brand in the space. NOTE: One combo goal between financial and career is to feel like I deserve my cleaning service back!



7) Personal or Prestige. This one is really about hobbies and interests. I guess I want to travel some place unique this year outside of Florida and the Cape. I want to check a new experience off my things to do and see before I die list. One thing that is already scheduled is taking a pistol permit class. Yup, I am going to be a gun toting blogger shortly.



8) Mental. Having just found this as a new category I am still formulating ideas. This is about personal growth, i.e. Professional Development courses or other education.. self help type books. My initial thought is this isn't a total priority this year. I will put some "Mental" effort to looking into possible goals.



From this, my next steps are to formalize the actions and steps for my primary and secondary list of objectives this year.

Goals Part Deux

I am still greatly struggling with this topic. In my quest to put together goals that fit with ability to complete them, I have done a bit of Internet research on goals and resolutions. The web news is full of items on this.

I have looked at celebrity goals. Brittany is going to try to stop biting her nails. Okay, there is the only thing the pop icon and I may have in common. That would be a good goal. I do bite my nails but do I care enough to make it a priority? After all the big 40 is looming this year... Cameron Diaz wants to "start wearing a bra". Well, I have had that one managed. Otherwise, it would be a necessary goal. After reading this one, I decided I needed other mentors to help form the goals.

I read a couple of articles on About.com on resolution and goal writing. Here is what I got out of my research...

1) Goals should have stretch and growth built into them but unattainable goals are worth the time and effort. In fact, unattainable goals can have negative results.

2) Work to develop a limited number of goals. Don't develop a grocery list of goals. Finish them and move on. There was also a good idea of an "A" list and a "B" list of goals. I would list "not biting my nails" on the B and even C list.

3) In order to be able to check them off, goals need to have measurement. Otherwise, how will you be able to move on to another set or realize that even though you haven't obtained completion you have made efforts to get there. The best example I have of this was my goal to meet and develop friendships outside family and cycling friends locally. I know I have taken steps to do this that have worked prior and tried other avenues. I haven't succeeded ... yet.. However, I have learned to knit! I call that effort and progress.

I am feeling better about actually getting into the nitty gritty of putting together a plan for 2009. I am also encouraged by the clips from Oprah yesterday. She seems to be facing the same challenges I have. The best thing I can say is I haven't given up on goal setting. I still want to improve my performance and hopefully satisfaction with life. Stay tuned ...

Achieving Goals

For the past five years at least, I have been putting in writing goals for both my personal and professional life. This started while I was in Georgia, I think. I hated the idea of a "New Year's Resolution". They always seem to be focused on the negative rather than a positive start to the next 365 days.

I have found myself struggling this year to put down the objectives for 2009 for both sections of my life. I want to blame this on a number of things. Today, I have gone from being excited to a bit depressed over the need to put these down. I am very lucky to have a manager that completely believes in the goal setting process. I think this may help me this year. Typically, I am the one writing them and then trying to get a friend to join me in the activity and setting up meeting times to review our progress or lack there of progress.

My dismay in writing these goals has been building over the last couple of days. I want to actually NOT have to put the same ol' goals on the list for 2010. I want to knock them off once and for all or get to the next step. I have been reading over and over the lists from 2006, 2007, 2008. Some years, I was very detailed and put steps in place. Last year, I was very vague and tried to keep the list short and manageable. This year... I am going to do a mixture of both.

My general themes are around:

• Health and Fitness


• Networking and friends


• clean house and happy family


• Financial success and hitting financial targets

I have made fits and throws at the health and fitness goals. For example, I joined a gym here in New Milford in late April. I went faithfully until we got Fiona and came down with Lyme disease this Summer. All progress stopped. I started again in October only to have another medical issue come on the scene. I am back at the gym again but fear that I will stop going again. The best I can say to that goal is that I haven't given up on it. It is still important to me.

Networking and friends.. Over the past three years, I have had goals about establishing a network of friends here in Connecticut that don't have anything to do with our family or Mr. B's cycling. I have certainly tried! Here are some of the things I have tried to build the network:

Knitting classes, Book clubs, movie club, puppy obedience, charity events, joined the gym, joined the New Milford Republicans.... Short of adopting a 6 year old child, I am at a bit of a loss.

Clean house and Happy Family... Well, my home is cleaner than my parents (not a hard thing) and not as clean as my in laws. I will always fight to get the laundry done. There is nothing in this world that is going to make me enjoy cleaning the bathroom. I am going to be happy with the efforts I make moving forward. I will be adding to my professional goals making enough money to justify having a cleaning service again.

Finally, financial success is my own to master. I need to hit my daily and weekly targets for activity and staying motivated. To date, this is seemingly easy because I am loving every minute of working at SelectMinds and more importantly the conversations I am having with prospects.

I am wondering if others have trouble writing goals. If so, let me know. I will be posting a sample of the 2009 goals here to my blog. Please feel free to keep me in check. My primary goal this year will be to have progress on each of them and to check some hangers off the list in 2010.