As I’m sure you all know, life seems to
be getting more and more complicated.
Between running a business, kids, trying to stay fit, aging parents,
looking after the house and trying to save a bit of money along the way, it’s
not an easy battle! Many entrepreneurs
think about the idea of creating a “simpler life”, but most are not even sure
where to begin.
I feel very
fortunate to be able to participate in Dan Sullivan’s Strategic Coach
Program. This is an amazing program
built for growth minded entrepreneurs to assist them in building self-managing
companies. There are a number of
breakthroughs I have experienced through participating in their sessions. One of these breakthroughs was experienced
after I read Dan’s book, Learning How to Avoid the Gap. This book depicts the undermining strategy
for building lifetime happiness through taking a different look at the
measurement of progress in life.
There are a
number of things that we measure in our lives.
Some of these include: physical appearance, wealth, intelligence,
relationships, possessions, etc. Many of
us have a vision or an ideal around what life would be like if we were more
confident in any of these areas. Personally, I have fought with my weight for a
number of years and often think about how I would feel at the perfect
weight. These visions are often the
inspiration for goals. In my case, to
eat healthier or to exercise more frequently.
The excitement then begins!
Most
significant goals take time to accomplish. When developing goals, most of us
start with a review our current situation.
We then figure out what our
target is and what success looks like. We
begin moving forward with an action plan and making progress. We then typically hit a few road blocks and
progress slows down. This is often the
point when we review progress compare it to the desired end result. In my personal example above, let’s say my
goal is to drop my weight from 220 to 200 pounds. I’m one month into my new healthier regime
and I’ve lost 4 pounds. Only 16 more to
go! I then begin thinking about how
tough it was to lose the first 4 pounds?
How am I going to be able to do this for the next 6 months? What about my upcoming vacation? How am I going to stay on track at an
all-inclusive resort? The conversation
then goes on and on. This often leads to
unhappiness, a lack of confidence and may result in you even abandoning the
goal itself. Dan Sullivan calls this
type of thinking “getting stuck in the GAP”.
If we take a
different approach to measurement, we can often change the feelings and
confidence around progress. Let’s say
we focus all of our progress measurement against our starting point. We know that getting to 200 pounds (loss of
20) is our end goal but let’s try to forget about that for a moment. Our starting point was 220 and now we are at
216! This is something to be celebrated.
Think about all the new health habits you have changed to get
there. Think about how many times you
have exercised in the last month. The
point is that this style of measurement is much more fulfilling. It helps build much more confidence and is
much more likely to keep you focused on the eventual achievement of your end
goal.
Throughout
life we will set thousands of goals.
Some as small as getting to work on time to goals as large as paying off
our mortgage or having enough money to retire comfortably. The sooner you begin measuring progress from
your starting point vs. the end result, the sooner you will begin building
confidence and will become happier in life.
In the event
you need additional assistance in simplifying your life, we also offer our
Simple Life Vision Session. This is a free, 90 minute, one-on-one session where
we help you come up with your own Simple Life Vision and a starting point for
an action plan to achieve it. Please
feel free to visit our website for any further information. www.simpleplanprogram.com
We appreciate your interest and hope this
information was of value to you. If you
happened to miss our Top 10 list, please let us know and we will be sure to
send you a copy. Have a fantastic day
and always remember to keep things simple!
Mark Landers is the creator of The Simple
Plan Program and has been helping entrepreneurs simplify their lives for over
10 years.
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