MinsetU

Goals Part 1

/ bjstagner / 1 Comment

graphic design

Click here for the fully formatted version

Goals

“You cannot reach what you cannot see, goals must be achievable, attainable and applicable.”

Finally, it’s time to pull the pin, nothing trumps execution.  Without executing the plan by setting the goals everything becomes smoke and mirrors.  Too many will set goals with aspirations of grandeur without having the proper foundation to make a difference in the end.  What this means is when we set goals, there must be a method behind the madness.  Everything leading up to this moment has been precise, the vision and the plan are set in motion and are practical in all aspects, therefore there is no reason why establishing and completing goals should be any different.  Don’t sell yourself short in establishing goals so low they will require no labour or discomfort.  The reality is, at this point in our endeavour we need to become comfortable with being uncomfortable.  This is especially true in setting and reaching goals.  Not only should they NOT be too easily reached, they must be able to be completed nonetheless.  

Goals – Achievable

Achievability, a word often used, but seldom fully understood.  It is defined as “the ability to be brought about or accomplished successfully.”   As mentioned in the opening section, “You cannot reach what you cannot see, goals must be achievable, attainable and applicable.”  Here we find our three point outline to establishing goals, which before they can be attainable and applicable, they must be achievable.  The latter two are pointless without the first one being accomplished.

We see it every New Year, people throw out a list of goals (aka resolutions) for the up coming twelve months.  Yet by the end of January, the new has worn off and the zeal of becoming the ‘new you’ has dimmed.  Most will now, settle for mediocrity and forget the list of changes desired.  The reason this occurs so often is because the goals may have been good goals, in theory, but the actual achievability was never considered.  This is a repeated process by hundreds of thousands of individuals around the world, the reality is things must change… we must change because if you make no changes you get the same results.

Think about it using the S.M.A.R.T. principle of goal setting (I am not advocating this system only using it as an example), many goals fit the qualification of S (specific), M (measurable) and T (time-bound).  Rarely do we find, even the worse goals fail to meet the criteria within these three.  Yet, the most overlooked and most severe of them all is the A (achievable).  Friend, goals worth setting are going to place you in the position of discomfort and this is okay.  Goals which place you in the position of delusion is not okay, as a matter of fact they are unhealthy as they set you up for failure.  There must be a visualisation of the victory, every NFL quarterback visualises the confetti falling upon their head whilst hoisting the Super Bowl trophy above their teammates shouting “we are the champions!”  The truth is there are only five active NFL QBs who have won a Super Bowl, 6 of which have been won by one person (Tom Brady).  This does not mean every Quarter Back in the league does not have aspirations or for that matter even the vision, plan and goal to win the championship at the start of the season.  When August rolls around, having a goal to win your division and the final championship is a great goal to have which will require loads of discomfort.  Now, if your team is 0-10 going into mid November, having a goal to be the NFL’s finest is pure delusion… and again, this is not okay, not in any reality.  

So, we must understand, proper goals, which are achievable and realistic will involve some struggle, some effort on our part and rightly so.  The nature of discomfort should not be avoided, as matter of fact, it should be pursued in many cases even if  the journey does not always go the way we want.  With that said, don’t be afraid to set big goals, remember you cannot reach what you cannot see; and don’t be frightful to face the obstacles needed to claim the victory, if it means clawing your way to the podium.  But, be realistic, set goals which are achievable based upon your vision and plan, once you reach them, simply re-set, place the baton further than before conquering the day in achieving another goal based upon the vision and plan you have established through the mindset of discipline. 

“Don’t sacrifice the permanent, upon the altar of the immediate!”

Discipline – Plan Part 2

/ bjstagner / Leave a comment

 

graphic design

Click here for the fully formatted version

Plan 

“Plans are not a promise, they are protection in the midst of preparation.” – (BJS)

The Plan… sounds simple… and in reality it is very simple.  You either have a plan or you do not, however, simple things are quite often not easy things.  This is a great misconception in life, assuming simplicity is equivalent to ease, when in fact, they typically hail from opposite corners.  Within the discipline mindset, one will develop a plan with great intention on executing the vision.  Success is determined by the execution, not the vision or even the plan.  This is why and where the difficulty arises.  Take diets for example, (I really do not like the word ‘diet’, mainly because when someone hears the word it has temporary connotation, but in truth, diet refers to the daily or regular intake of nutrients), according to the Annual Diet and Healthy-Eating Report, the average dieter follows 55 fad diets during their lifetime at a staggering cost of £30,000, which is enough money to put a deposit down on a first home.  Sadly, only one in three people will actually lose weight and just one in five feel better from the new regimes.  

Why?  Because their vision was not OWNED by themselves, therefore the plan was faulty at the first.  Herein, is where CHANGE must take place, a renewed mind; with a mindset of discipline taking ownership and responsibility for our life, understanding the personal choices made are OUR decisions and not another’s.  Just because someone around us has made bad choices in their life does not mean we have to follow suit.  We can and must break the mould and move onward to a bigger and brighter future.  We are responsible for our own decisions and must hold ourselves accountable for poor choices as well as wise ones (yes, you can reward yourself for doing right).

How?

Plan – Preeminence

Preeminence is defined as “the state or character of being preeminent” with preeminent meaning “eminent above or before others; superior; surpassing”.  In other words, if something is preeminent in one’s life it takes priority above and beyond other things.  It will out shine and stand out in our hearts and mind thus influencing us to make wise decisions in life.  This is true in our dieting (daily and regular intake of nutrients), time management, financial budgeting, relationships etc.  Making wise decisions based upon a vision within an established plan with purpose must take preeminence in our life in order for success to be prevalent.  

This is how new behaviour is established, by making planned choices, which in turn develops into a habit.  We have often heard it takes 21 days to develop a new habit, however, there are flaws in this statement and science has proven so.  First off, many of the self help gurus in the world have taken such information by partially portraying the statement of Dr. Maxwell Maltz, a plastic surgeon in the 1950s.  He began to find in many of his patients, it took “a minimum of 21 days” to adjust to their new image.  The ‘Tony Robbins’ of our day removed “a minimum of” and ran with the  ’21 day’ promise, giving people the sense of assurance they would be a new person in less than a month.  It is quite possible for this to work with certain folks.  However, if this was a definitive truth, we would not have ‘dieters’ jumping on and off 50 different fad-diets in their lifetime.  More recent studies have revealed it takes more than 2 months before a new behaviour becomes automatic, 66 days to be exact and in a more comprehensive research we found it has taken anywhere from 18 to 254 days for people to form a new habit.  

What does this mean for us?  It means new behaviour and the developing of positive habits are dependent upon a person who has more than a desire for change, but rather a drive.  A drive to fulfil a plan with a purpose, based upon a realistic vision, placing it at the forefront of their day, thus making choices giving it preeminence in their life.

“If it was easy, everyone would do it… Simplicity doesn’t always equal ease and ease quite often isn’t very simple.”

Discipline – Vision Part 2

/ bjstagner / Leave a comment

graphic design

Click here to open the fully formatted version of Discipline – Vision Part 2

Vision 

Recapping quickly, remember, in order to make choices beneficial to one’s life and assist us in achieving success or at the very least to give us the best option of success, we must develop a mindset of Discipline. 

Success in anything in life, whether you want to improve your work ethic, lose ten pounds or increase your back squat requires Discipline, beginning with a sound vision.  Such vision starts with passion, which is something no one can take away from you, even if it is lying dormant underneath layers of frustration and excuses, dig it out and execute.

Vision – Position

Once passion has set ablaze in your heart, kick starting your vision, there must be a Position in life for such a vision.  Here is an example, one particular individual is passionate about becoming a partner with the corporation they are working for.  However, in order to do so, they will have to work twice the hours, accumulate three times the customer base, all the while compete against thirty other employees vying for the same position.  One must ask themselves this question, “do I have the position in my life to pursue such passion?”.  In other words, is there enough time in the day, week and year to achieve this level of success? 

To make this more sensible, if you are passionate about losing 20 pounds or increasing your bench one rep max do you have a position (time) in your life to dedicate to such an achievement?  The position is what makes the passion a reality, which does not mean, by any reason we should settle for mediocrity at all, it does mean our vision will enable us to establish a plan with realistic goals based upon a proper time frame.

As your vision develops, passion will drive the vision, but position will direct it.  The mindset of Discipline deciphers between the actual and the hopeful; it is within these two contributing factors the vision begins to take shape and formulate into hunger allowing you to take the next step in solidifying such vision which will establish the plan to achieve your goals.  

“Just because someone is the loudest person in the room doesn’t make what they saying more important or even correct… follow your passion despite the antagonist.

And Here We Go…

/ bjstagner / Leave a comment

For a pdf copy of this article please click here.

graphic design

First Things First

As we embark on a new year we are must be willing to accept the challenges involved in what a new season of life brings.  Quite often, as we lead into a new year, we all stand at a crossroad of some sort.  It is at this location choices must be made in our life.  The reality is, there are two initial options, 1.) continue down the path from the previous year, 2.) make viable changes to improve our life.  These choices sometimes are made daily, whilst others are weekly, monthly, yearly.  In some cases (and more often than we believe) there are many decisions made once in a lifetime.  These my friend, are life altering choices we make which can lead to the upward momentum in life or a downward spiral (let’s address these a little later).  Nevertheless, choices must be made in this life, from the smallest levels to the most complex.  In order to make the correct choices along the road of life, we must adopt and develop a particular mindset to increase our chances of success.  By no means does this infer we have always made the right decision, but there is an eternal truth of every choice in life having a consequence.

In order to make choices beneficial to one’s life and assist us in achieving success or at the very least to give us the best option for success, we must develop a mindset of Discipline.  Before you think this is a cure all or a vaccine to failure, think again,  Discipline is the difference between ultimate success and failure.  However defeat will occur, loss will happen and when it does, don’t waste them.  Don’t waste the pain, the hurt, the loss in your life… learn from it, live through it and walk accordingly to a mindset of discipline thriving afterwards!

Success in life, whether you want to improve your work ethic, lose ten pounds or increase your back squat requires three things as approached through discipline: a vision, plan and goals.  Over the next several instalments we will break these down individually with aspirations of assisting you, as the reader, to achieve success in each choice made on the road of life. 

Vision

Many years ago I opened a new year vision Sunday service with this statement, “A plan without a vision is merely a wish and a vision without a plan is only a dream…”.  One common mistake I see made in life is when people desire change or strive to succeed, the first thing they do is sit down and design a plan.  Whereas this is admirable, it is based upon a faulty foundation.  Essentially this would be equivalent to building a structure beginning with the roof first.  The bottomline we must have both, a vision and a plan.

We hear phrases thrown out when describing widely successful entrepreneurs as ‘visionaries’; however, they are never referred to as such in the midst of the process; because typically no one really understands what they are doing nor why they are doing it.  The key to their success, is found in the fact they know what they are doing and why.  Simply put, their plan for success is based upon their vision.

The vision typically has three major components, of which we will address each one over the next few instalments.  These attributes are Passion, Preeminence and Peculiarity (rarity.)

Vision – Passion

Passion in this sense is more than just a superficial feeling. It is deep, almost inexplicable, and it is something people cannot take away.   Passion can be developed, but quite often it is already there, lying underneath the layers of busy schedules and even the conditioned boredoms we experience each day through mindless moments of social media scrolling.  

You may have a passion to start your own company, to rally the village, town or city together for a cause or improve your physical, mental, emotional and/or spiritual health.  It’s important to have the courage to pursue what is in your heart as long as it lines up with doing the right thing.  Passion outside the lines of right and wrong is perversion (i.e. if you are passionate to be wealthy and decide to rob a bank or passionate about making it to the Crossfit games but cheat the reps and weight to do it or passionate about hitting a bench personal best but use steroids to do so…).  Right will always be right and wrong will always be wrong no matter how many are doing or not doing them.  Think about it. 

So, step number one in having a vision is determine where your passion lies.  Seek wise counsel and do not be afraid to take a risk.  Avoid letting fear, criticism, or doubt cripple you from making a decision of passion.  Even if the stakes are high and the naysayers loud, do not let it stop you from being committed to the journey of success in developing a mindset of discipline in order to reach success.

“Just because someone is the loudest person in the room doesn’t make what they are saying more important or even correct… follow your passion despite the noise.

 

mindsetu 1 discipline vision 1 passion