You Were Made for More! Part 4: Practices to Get You More Without Going Crazy!
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” ― Lao Tzu
“Chance favors the prepared mind.” ― Louis Pasteur
Last weekend I watched a TV report about Seneca Village, a small community comprised of black businesses and family homes that was situated inside what eventually became Central Park in New York City. The point of the piece was to inform viewers about the successful businesses and the lives that were disrupted by building the park. The woman they interviewed said, “The victors write history”, so she obviously thought a terrible wrong had been done. I can see how she might feel that way but as someone who has visited New York and the Central Park many times I couldn’t help thinking about all the benefits that came from the small first step of envisioning a park in the middle of that city.
The New York legislature was very future-thinking in 1853 when they set aside more than 750 acres of land to create America’s first major landscaped public park in Manhattan. It was a huge amount of land in a city that was mostly growing around its shorelines at the time. It’s as if they understood that the city’s population would one day push it skyward, and greenspace would be essential to the overall health of New Yorkers, so they set aside what was then seen as a huge parcel of land.
The small, seemingly insignificant steps we take today can have a huge impact on the lives we live years from now.
This is the fourth installment in my articles on Getting the More You Were Made For. I’ve previously written about identifying the characteristics you want to define your life when you’re sixty-five or older, defining the moral and ethical code that will help you stay on-track toward those goals, and determining whether you truly believe you have the ability to make a positive impact on your own life – something psychologists call Locus of Control. Today I want to share what I’ve learned about effective practices you can use to move you toward those goals without losing your mind.
If you know me then you know I said that last part that way for fun, but there’s also a lot of truth in it as well. You see, taking steps toward goals isn’t something everyone can do easily. In fact, defining the steps in a process toward a goal is something that a significant number of people struggle with every day, and it may surprise you how many of history’s best-known and brilliant people struggled to define the best steps to take toward their goals. On the other hand, many of you who read these articles may be having a difficult time defining the goals you would like to move toward in your own life.
The fact is no one person is made to do everything well. I know there are people who read that sentence and think to themselves, “well, of course not Jim”, but if you examine your own life I’d bet you can find instances where you were frustrated by your own inability to handle some aspect of life maintenance as well as you’d like. The bottom line is that all of us need strategies to help us set and keep tracking toward the larger aspirations we set for our lives. The most useful strategy that I’ve found is something I call S-A-S.
S-A-S is an acronym for Small Achievable Steps. I first encountered S-A-S when I was in the middle of writing my doctoral dissertation – the big research paper you have to complete to obtain a doctoral degree. By the time I completed mine it was over five chapters and 300 pages long, but right in the middle of the process I got stuck with a case of writer’s block. In desperation I joined a support group for people writing dissertations (Yes, there are such things).
The counselor who was running the group offered the idea of identifying the smallest step toward finishing the paper any of us could accept as progress. For some that meant turning on their computer, others chose to write only one sentence that week or another seemingly tiny action, but the counselor helped us understand that achieving any of those steps actually put us a bit closer to our end goal of finishing the paper.
Applying S-A-S to life goals and aspirations is a strategy that’s repeatedly proved its value in the lives of my clients and myself. You begin by understanding that any big hairy audacious goal is actually comprised of an infinite number of small behaviors that you do over a longer period of time.
For example, if one of the goals you have for your marriage is to grow ever closer in your relationship to your spouse, then a good step is to learn how she/he best receives love from you – what Gary Chapman calls the Five Love Languages – then practice doing something that expresses your affection for her/him on a regular basis. It takes very little time or energy for me to tell my wife she looks good, to give her a kiss in the morning or even an affectionate pat on the backside, but it pays huge dividends in the strength of our relationship.
Small Achievable Steps performed consistently for a long period of time add up. To move your career or life forward you may need to do some seemingly insignificant task every day or week. Author, speaker and retreat leader Robert Benson began writing everything, including his grocery lists, in his personal journal as a tool to sharpen and maintain his writing skills. He understands that every positive action has potential to help him become (and stay) an excellent writer. I have other friends who are doctors and financial advisors who read journals and industry websites to ensure they are on top of the latest research and knowledge within their fields.
If you want to attain the life you were made for, then you must establish a life practice of taking small achievable steps toward your goals. These are things you can do every day, week, month or year that will help you attain and keep the things that are most important to you.
You also have to understand that S-A-S Are Non-negotiable – that you make them life priorities you won’t sacrifice, except for the most extreme or pressing reasons – because easily disrupted things do not and cannot have the power to impact the course or outcomes of your life.
Small Achievable Steps also need to include some reward for completing them. I teach executives who want to build a positive work culture in their team or business that they must always think about reinforcing the positive behaviors they see in their employees because behaviors that aren’t reinforced will disappear. The reinforcements can be a simple as acknowledging and thanking employees or “giving verbal hugs” for specific actions or as grand as morale-building team meals, trips or financial rewards. The point is to reward desired behaviors or kiss them goodbye because things we don’t reward will become extinct.
Moral victories aren’t good enough for most of us to maintain our commitment or enthusiasm for S-A-S accomplishments. We need a reward that triggers the pleasure centers in our brains in order to reinforce and maintain the behaviors. My personal reward for time spent writing is to get outside in the sunshine and move around. I much prefer time outdoors to time spent on my rear in front of a computer.
Ask yourself what small and achievable actions will help you move closer to the work-life you want. You may need to write them out and place them where you will easily and routinely see them – just to remind you for a while. Remember that they need to be achievable, but after a while you may need to add to them, perhaps by adding time, length or even new tasks. What can you do today or this week that will get you a step closer to your goals?
As I’ve said before, I’m always willing to meet in-person or by video conference to talk about these ideas and how you and I can apply them to our work-lives. I encourage you to take me up on the offer.
Next Up – Keeping Momentum
My Best for You!