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In the last post, I shared about why it is important to stay consistent as you work towards your goals. That leads to the next question: how can you ensure that you stay consistency?

The struggle for consistency will look different in every person’s life based on their individual goals and lifestyles. The following are general tips which will be helpful to many of you.

1. Make a decision

Without making a conscious decision to pursue your goals consistently, week after week and day after day, you will not be able to do so. It takes a true effort on your part to be consistent so you must decide to do so. This can’t be a light decision where you say “I’ll try to be more consistent”, rather it must be a committed decision. You must be firm about your decision to pursue consistency.

2. Determine a realistic time commitment

Take some time and evaluate your life. Evaluate all the different roles you have in your life. You might be a mother, a husband, an employee. You might have roles with your church, with other organizations, or with a sports team. Determine how much time you realistically should be putting in to each role on a weekly basis, and if possible schedule in your committed times. Use this as a starting point to determine how much time you should realistically put towards your various goals every week. Whether that is two hours, four hours, ten hours or more; determine the appropriate amount of time that you can commit consistently – ever week! Make sure this commitment is realistic, so probably take your initial estimate and scale it down a little. If you set a commitment that is too high it will lead to burnout and you won’t follow through. You may want to use my weekly planning system as part of determining your time commitment.

3. Set specific times

The next step is to take your weekly calendar and mark in when you will actually be spending your time pursing your goal. Determine what days you are going to do activities, how much time each day, and when those hours fall. For example, one of my goals is to grow my blogs. That means taking the time to write good articles. To do that, I have set aside thirty minutes a day for writing. These thirty minutes occurs almost immediately after I get up in the morning. Because it is a specific time, it quickly develops into a habit. Another goal I am pursuing is growing my affiliate home business. Part of this goal involves phone meetings with business partners and potential clients. On my schedule, I have one time slot each day set aside for one of these phone meetings. I used to try to do as many as possible, and found that I would do a lot for a little while and quickly burn out. After burning out, I wouldn’t do any for a long time. That is NOT staying consistent. By scheduling only one time each day for a phone meeting I keep up a steady consistent pace.

4. Stick to it

To be consistent you need to stick to your plan. You likely will get off track from time to time. When you do, get right back on your plan and start moving forward again. You will need to refocus in this way from time to time. Also periodically revisit your time commitment and scheduled times and examine whether they are still appropriate. You will need to make revisions as you go along and move towards your goals. Also, at some points you will achieve a goal you are pursing. Take some time to celebrate and then determine what the next step or new goal that you would like to accomplish.

5. Try, try and try again

Staying consistent is a learning process. It takes time to learn how to build your life around consistent action. Certainly some people find this comes naturally, but for most of us it consistency does not come easy. That may be true even if you are excited and passionate about what you do. It is easy to burn out on your passions by spending too much time in those areas. As you continue to work towards consistency, you will get better. If you have made a firm decision to make consistent progress towards your goals, you will get there. Work your plan each day and each week. If you find yourself losing consistency, recognize it and refocus yourself. Over time you will get more and more consistent.

The great thing about consistency is that as you pursue it, you will see results. You will see yourself moving towards your goals step by step. You will find yourself breaking through the difficult inertia of the early stages and building momentum. Whether your goal is losing a few extra pounds, getting out of debt, building a part-time business, or learning a language, consistency will help you succeed.

Written by:

Danny Gamache – The Success Professor
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We all know that personal growth is important if we want to move forward in life, get better, and achieve our goals.  But how consistent is your personal growth? If you are like many it goes in spurts.  You’ll have a period of time when you are doing all the right things: you are listening to CDs and podcasts and reading books.  Because you pursue these activities in spurts you also grow in spurts.  You grow for a little, and then stabilize.

What is interesting is that your progress towards your goals will end up following the same track.  When you are growing and pursuing personal growth activities you will be moving towards your goals. There is a direct relationship between personal growth activities and progress towards your goals.

So what’s the solution?  A small but consistent daily commitment to personal growth.

Just FIFTEEN minutes a day!

That’s all it takes.  Fifteen minutes a day can help you stay focused on your goals, moving forward, growing, and a step ahead of your competition.

Here’s how you can make the most of your fifteen minutes a day:

1. Those fifteen minutes a day must be FOCUSED.

They must be FOCUSED on the field or discipline that you need in order to achieve your primary goal.  If your primary goal is in sales, you should be pursing personal growth activities that help you be a better salesperson and stay motivated.  If your primary goal is your blog, you need to be learning about how to be a better blogger.  If your primary goal is to run a marathon, you need to be pursing activities that keep you excited, encouraged and learning how to be a better runner.

This means that other personal growth activities that you pursue don’t count towards your fifteen minutes.  Only activities directly connected to your primary goal count as your fifteen minutes a day.

2. Know the skills and abilities that you want to improve.

Based on your goals, you need to know what areas you need to get better at.  If you are a salesperson, perhaps you need to focus on closing skills or on understanding your customers.  If you are a blogger, you may want to learn about developing WordPress themes or improving your marketing skills.  What are the skills that you need to excel in to achieve your goals and be excellent in what you do.

3. The fifteen minutes a day must be consistent.

You need to do this every day without skipping.  Initially this might be hard.  You may forget, there may be other things going on, and it may feel like you don’t have time.  Even if it is the last thing you do before you go to bed at night make sure you take that fifteen minutes pursing focused growth.

Personal growth in this manner is a habit.  That means after a period of time it will become a lot easier perhaps even automatic.  It takes time to form a habit, but it is worth it.

4. Have someone hold you accountable

Anytime you are looking to pursue a goal or create a habit, you will have more success if you have someone holding you accountable.  As you work to create a fifteen minute a day of personal growth habit, you will be more likely to do it if you have people holding you accountable.  Ideally these should be people who are pursing a similar primary goal and as such are working on similar personal growth activities.

I have a group of four other people that I work with to hold each other accountable to our fifteen minute a day of personal growth.  We email each other every couple of days and share how we have spent our fifteen minutes of personal growth time.  Not only does that help keep us motivated but it serves as a way to share ideas on personal growth activities.

5. Engage in personal growth activities

Just do it!  The slogan that Nike uses is useful here.  You need to get started and just do your fifteen minutes of personal growth time.  What should you do?  There are many options:

• read a book (my top 10 books are listed here)
• listen to a training CD
• get an audio book from the library
• listen to podcasts (my top 10 podcasts are listed here)
• read inspiring blogs
• watch a TED presentation (my top 5 TED presentations are listed here)

There are lots of options, choose one and get started!

Fifteen minutes a day is not a lot of time.  You can learn a new skill, move towards your goals, and above everything else grow!

Written by:
Danny Gamache – The Success Professor
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Are you making progress toward your goals?  Last week we started a series of “check-ups”.  These check-ups are quick questions that help you make sure you making progress in different areas of your life.  The first part of this series was a health and fitness check-up. Today we move to a goal setting and progress check-up.

Once again the questions are all pretty simple.  There are no tips here that you haven’t read before…. But are you doing them?  Do you have your goals in place, and are you doing what you need to in order to move towards those goals? The questions are all YES or NO questions.  If you answer NO then you should make it a priority to complete the project and change your NO to a YES.  If you answer YES to all of these you are likely making significant progress towards your goals.

Question #1 – Do you have a clear understanding of the mission and values that drive your life?

Setting goals is irrelevant if you don’t have clarity about who you are. This means you have a clear understanding about the values that drive you and the overarching mission of your life.

Values are the core beliefs that drive you and guide you. They set the parameters around what you will do and what you won’t do.  They are internal and fixed.  Identifying these values is vital.  If you don’t identify your values you may find yourself inadvertently working against your values; doing this will make you miserable.  For example, if one of your true values is family-time, and yet you spend all of your time at work, then even success at work won’t satisfy you.

Your mission stems out of your values; it is what you are meant to do, or who you are meant to be. Your mission can be broad and yet focused; broad enough that you have lots of ways of living it out, but narrow enough that you have a clear purpose and direction.

Question #2 – Do you have your long-term goals written down?

Long-term goals stem directly out of your mission; they reflect where you want to be, have or do in the distant future.  Some of these long-term goals may be ten or twenty years down, and others might be thirty or forty years. For example, if you are thirty you may have a long-term goal of retiring comfortably at sixty.  This would be a long-term goal.  You need to write this down and clearly define what “retiring comfortably” means.  Another example might be that you want your business to do $100 million in sales.  This might take ten years to complete, but it’s a clear goal that you want to achieve.

Any goals you have need to be written, dated, and specific. This is true, even for your long-term goals. You will likely have several long-term goals.  One way to think through and determine your long-term goals is to imagine what your ideal day would be like at some date in the future.  Write out what you would have, do and be at some date in your future.

Question #3 – Do you have shot-term goals for the next three-five years?

The next step of goal setting is to have short-term goals for three to five years out.  These are often a lot more clear and vivid.  Naturally, most of these short-term goals will be direct steps to help you achieve your long-term goals.  In essence, the short-term goals are the next major steps that you are working on. Make sure they are challenging goals that will advance your life in significant ways.

Question #4 – Do you have current goals for the next three to four months?

Likely the most important goals to have clearly defined are your current goals.  Current goals can be anything from one year goals to one month goals.  I recommend quarterly goals as the best option. Three months is a great length of time for you to focus on a few projects and goals.

Remember that these current goals can just be steps towards your short-term and long-term goals.  By breaking down the longer goals into more basic projects you will be more focused and motivated to see success.  You might not be able to see a lot of progress towards a long-term goal, but if you break it down to immediate goals of three or four months long you can be encouraged as you see daily progress.

Question #5 – Do you take your immediate goals and divide them into weekly goals?

The final step of breaking down your goals is to have weekly goals that build towards your immediate goals.  Your weekly goals can be set as a part of a weekly review time that you schedule each week.  This is where you can examine your accomplishments from the previous week, review your immediate goals and set new goals for the following week.  I follow my weekly planning process as part of this review process.

Question #6 – Do you have things that remind you goals throughout the day?

You can’t just set goals and forget them.  Ok, you can, but you won’t succeed in achieving them.  Instead you must think of your goals throughout the day on different occasions.  One great way to do this is to have reminders that you will see throughout the day.  These can be things in your home or office that help you to connect to your goals and inspire you to move towards them.

There are a lot of ways to set these kinds of reminders.  Some of my favorites are:

• tape photos of your goals to your mirror
• use a screen saver or desktop photo on your computer
• design a goals poster and place it somewhere you will see it
• put reminders and photos on the fridge
• put notes on a bulletin board

Now that you have your goals clearly set, have a weekly review process in place, and have things to remind you of your goals throughout the week all that is left to do is to work.  Do the activities that you have set out to do.  Get started and go!  Before you know it, your goals and dreams will come true.

Written by:
Danny Gamache – The Success Professor
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No matter what type of organization you lead, business you run, or what kind of personal goals you are pursuing, one of the keys that will determine the level of your success is momentum.  Momentum is defined as “the force of movement”.  It can help decide how high you will go and how quickly you will get there.  At the same time, momentum can often prove illusive; something that seems to be here today and yet is gone tomorrow.

WHAT DOES MOMENTUM LOOK LIKE

John Maxwell calls momentum “the big mo”.   In his book “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership”, he says that “Momentum is really a leader’s best friend.  Sometimes it’s the only difference between winning and losing.”

You know you have momentum when you run over obstacles in your path like they were nothing.  Momentum is when things happen with ease, one success follows another and forward growth comes quickly.  Momentum allows leaders to move past mistakes quickly, and any kind of change is possible.  People throughout the organization are motivated to achieve more, and at a higher level. Momentum makes the leader look good, because success seems to happen easily.

If you’re in sales, momentum is when sales come easy, one after another.  In fact you are confident going into the next sales call that you will make the sale.  In your personal life momentum is when you are meeting your goals one after another.  It is when your life is in balance and everything is going right.  You get the idea – it’s like dominos once one thing falls, the rest follow suit.

HOW TO ACHIEVE MOMENTUM

1. Achieving momentum starts with creating forward progress.

Getting started is the most difficult part.  It’s like the law of inertia:  an object in motion tends to stay in motion, and an object at rest tends to stay at rest.  Momentum is what happens when you get moving.  Whatever your goal is take a step towards it now.  This is why I suggest starting your day with a power hour. Your power hour allows you to do something first off in the morning that gives you progress towards your goals right away.  You create success within the first hour of the day, helping you gain momentum.  Once you are in motion for the day you are more likely to stay in motion and continue on towards your goals.

2. You are responsible for the momentum of your team.

Momentum starts with the leader, and then moves outwards and impacts the entire team.  If you lead a team of people in any form then you are responsible for the momentum of your team, you can’t place the responsibility on anyone else. Team momentum starts with your personal momentum.  You need to be motivated yourself and moving forward, before you can motivate others.  Understanding this will allow you to help your team to follow these steps towards momentum.

3. Have a clear vision and goals for your future.

Develop a vision for where you want to go and keep that vision out front.  Continually remind yourself and your team about the vision you are pursing.  Your vision should be important, not just to yourself but some way of contributing to the world and the well being of others.  This kind of vision will inspire. Then starting from your vision set your goals.  Make your goals clear, concise and dated.  Develop ways to remind yourself about your goals and vision.  Review your goals list daily, and put photos around your workspace and home that remind you of your goals.  Use these reminders to inspire you to move forward.

4. Apply the principle of massive action.

In the Olympic 100m sprint, the most important part of the race is leaving the starting blocks.  Sprinters that have a quick reaction time and are able to leave the start with power are often able to get so much momentum that they can’t be caught later in the race.  In your business you need to leave the starting blocks fast.  Even if your business is established you can get out fast by restarting your business – do that today and go!  If you are looking for customers, make a massive amount of prospecting calls bringing in a large amount of new customers; if you’re promoting your web site, do massive amounts of promotion – whatever you do to grow your business or to achieve your personal goals, start creating momentum by doing massive amounts of what it takes to succeed.

5. Follow one success immediately with another.

When is the best time to try to set an appointment with a prospect?  The best time to make a new prospecting call is immediately after you just set an appointment.  When is the best time to do a sales presentation? It is immediately after you just made a sale.  Far too often people will stop and take a break after they meet some goal or objective.  They think they deserve a reward and they take a break.  I’m all in favor of rewarding yourself for success but if you do it immediately after a small success, you’re limiting the momentum you can achieve.  If you’ve just had success in a particular goal, whether its making a sale or meeting a deadline you have gained a tremendous amount of energy and confidence from that action – so take advantage of it and make the next step.  You are most motivated immediately following a success, make use of that motivation to continue the forward motion you’ve started.  Reward yourself later, keep moving forward now!

6. Create Wins for Your Team

Having seen your success, the motivation of your teammates will be rising.  You can capitalize on this by putting them in situations that allow them to see some wins in what they are doing.  Look for any way you can of helping them succeed.  The more wins they can have, the more confidence they will have and the more momentum they will be build.  Make sure you are not neglecting the massive personal action at this time as well.  You need to maintain personal activity while working with your team members at the same time.
Following these steps will help you create “the big mo”.  Hold on tight, because momentum can propel you and your business further towards your goals in a short time than you might even imagine.

The Success Professor – Danny Gamache
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How do you start your day? Do you slowly get up, spend 30 minutes having a cup of coffee and reading or watching the news? Do you have days where you feel like you didn’t get much accomplished and where you wonder where the day went?

You can increase your effectiveness and create momentum for your day by starting with a Power Hour. A Power Hour is when you set aside the first hour in the morning to work – uninterrupted on important projects. Ideally the Power Hour takes place immediately when you wake up, but it could also take place immediately when you arrive at the office, or perhaps both!

There are many benefits of having a Power Hour:

• You start the day by accomplishing or making progress on an important project
• You feel good about your day right off the start
• You create momentum for the day that continues over into other activities
• You get done things you otherwise would not do.

As you try this you will quickly see how you can a lot done in an hour of uninterrupted time. This sort of progress towards your goals will accelerate your accomplishment, helping you achieve your goals in less time.

But what do you do with your time? There are many options, and what you do will depend greatly on your personal life goals.

Here are some tasks that I do in my Power Hour:

• Go through my business follow up list and plan which prospects to call
• Write a guest post for a blog
• Follow through on commitments you have made
• Send postcards or letters to business partners to celebrate their success
• Clear up my “to file” pile
• Do monthly planning
• Start a project you’ve been procrastinating on
• Make improvements to my websites
• Do something for my wife as a surprise.

It is naturally best to come into your Power Hour prepared and knowing what project you intend to work on. I plan my Power Hour as part of my weekly planning (during step #4). This way, as I enter my week I am sure of getting several important projects done that will help me achieve my goals.

In reality the list of possible tasks you can do during your power hour is nearly endless. Whatever you choose to do in your Power Hour there are some rules you should follow:

• Only do tasks that are important – not just urgent
• Only work on projects that move you towards your goals
• Allow no interruptions – this may mean training your family members or coworkers to leave you alone for the hour
• Do not check email, answer the phone or read blogs.
• Be consistent – do this every day.

Start this right away. You may be able to move around your morning schedule, or you may have to wake up a little earlier. Even if you need to get up an hour earlier – DO IT! The amount you will accomplish in your day will be impressive.

- The Success Professor

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Effective planning and goal setting is important. Often we hear lessons about having long-term goals, and annual goals, but to keep on track and keep your business, and life, moving forward the goals and plans to achieve those goals must be broken down into weekly and daily bites. As the famous saying goes, the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. By following these simple steps, you will get more completed, you will accomplish more of the right things, and you will reach more of your goals.

Step #1 – Define your life roles
In his book, First Things First Stephen Covey recommends dividing your life into the various roles you fill. For example, my roles including: my job as a college professor, my role as a blogger, and my work as an entrepreneur. I also have an important role as a husband, and another with my involvement in my faith community.

Beyond these sorts of roles, everyone should also include personal development goals. Covey recommends capping your number of roles at seven. These roles will change from time to time as your life changes, but they should cover the important aspects of your life.

Step #2 – Set goals for each of your life roles
Now that you’ve divided your life into a number of manageable roles it’s important to set goals for each goal. By setting important goals each week in each of your roles, you will be able to keep a better balance in your life. I recommend setting about 2-4 goals in each of your important roles. Now at certain times you will need to be in a period of focused imbalance for a few weeks, putting more efforts into one of the roles than the others, but over the long-term you should remember to always be setting goals in each of the life roles. The goals on this list should be based directly off of your long-term goals. In other words, you should be doing things each week that help you move towards your long-term goals. It is these activities that are your weekly goals.

Step #3 – Schedule all meetings and booked times
Each week you will likely have a number of appointments, meetings and scheduled events that you have to be at. These are things that you can’t avoid as you have to be at a certain place at a certain time. Schedule these into a day planner. I strongly recommend using a planner with a week at a time view. Each week I book in the classes I need to teach, any athletic events I’m participating in, and other meetings and obligations. You should still have plenty of blank space remaining for the rest of your tasks and other meetings that may pop up.

Step #4 – Schedule time for your most important projects
Using your goals list that you developed in step two, schedule the most important ones into the space left in your day planner. Be sure to allow time for goals in each role including those that are not directly professional goals. Allow for time with your spouse and children. Allow time to serve others and time to grow.

Step #5 – On a daily basis plan your next day
Each night before you go to bed, take 10 or 15 minutes with your weekly goals sheet and plan a daily to do list for the next day. Use your weekly goals to plan tasks to do the next day. Write this list in order of importance starting with the most important tasks to complete the next day. Add to this list any phone calls you need to make, emails you need to send or any other small things that may have come up throughout the day. By writing them down you won’t forget any important details. With a daily plan like this when you start each day you will have a list of priorities that correspond to your weekly goals.

Step #6 – Remember people are most important
One risk with any type of weekly or daily plan is that you can become so focused on the goals and schedule that you don’t have time for anyone who comes in your way. You may find yourself angry when you are interrupted by your child or spouse. While some uninterrupted time is important, it is also vital to remember that people are more important than things. Chances are that you are working so hard in order to provide for your family. Don’t neglect the opportunity to act with love towards them now. Use your schedule as a guide but don’t let it control you.

As you follow these steps, be sure to adjust them in anyway you need so that you can be most effective and most efficient at what you do. Set weekly goals, organize your daily tasks and work hard to achieve them. You will reach YOUR goals!

Danny Gamache
The Success Professor
Visit: http://dannyg.makemoreathome.com