Ep#42 How to succeed with your goal

Hi everyone, my name is Dex Randall, and this is the Burnout to Leadership podcast, where I teach professional men to recover from burnout and get back to passion and reward at work. Hello, my friends, this is Dex, welcome to the podcast. Glad you could join us for this week's episode on Making Goals Happen. And I'm doing this 'cause I'm working on a goals intensive right now with some senior executive clients, and this week in class, we're looking at what happens right after you've nailed down your goal. It's well aligned with your purpose, it's well defined. So you've created a goal with a deadline that's not currently achievable. Well, then, the first thing that happens is it requires straight away a redefinition of your belief to create a new possibility in effect. And it might be if you've got a goal, you're looking at the system and seeing that as a perceived barrier, but often it's only, our own limiting beliefs that truly prevent us from seeing the way forward. Think about the Wright Brothers and flight. And if we haven't done something before, we might tell ourselves we can't do it now. But actually, if we can't achieve it now, then it will only be our lack of belief that stops us. Most of the other issues can be resolved. So really we have to at the beginning, forget what we know and make this great leap into the unknown. Of course, if you wanna be something like, I don't know, the world's greatest pole vaulter, and you're 85 years old, okay, then it might be a stretch. But most of the big goals that we do conceive are possible, and somewhere in the back of our mind there's a challenge there that we wanted to set for ourselves,'cause we're type A personalities and we like to play big game. So these guys in class, then they've all chosen their outrageous goals, they've patted them into shape, and now they really just need to knuckle down and work out their sub goals for each month up until their deadline, such that by achieving each of those sub goals, they make the final goal inevitable. It's just a done deal. Because that's the mindset you need to get into to achieve this impossible goal, whatever it is, along with a deep, open curiosity about how you're going to achieve it. You kind of have to rest in the not knowing and still at the same time have faith, it is all gonna work out. So if faith is missing, you might wanna revisit any time in the past where you pulled off something really amazing you didn't think you could do. Look for evidence in your life that achieving the impossible can happen, because that evidence itself really is just a belief. And also, you can create that belief right now without looking for past evidence, or you can use past evidence to create a completely new belief that's gonna support you going towards your goal. You can just simply choose to believe, to have faith. 'Cause faith is just a belief in a power greater than you that can work for you. It's faith that things can happen outside what you can do for yourself, and I reckon it's a pretty handy thing to have, because when you have faith, you can choose to be certain that your goal will happen, even though right now, you can't see how. And if you're in burnout and faith is running at an all time low, by the way, if that's you listening now, for goodness sake, come and talk to me. Do something about the burnout, because it's a temporary problem, it can be fixed, but it won't fix itself by you doing nothing. So if that's you, come and talk to me. But okay, those of you who are slightly beyond that burnout phase and you're pursuing goals, what do you need to get your goal happening? Well, let's review the first three steps that I've just spoken about. Number one, you need to create a SMART goal, Smart, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, Time bound, you must set a deadline, and then you must commit to that goal and make sure it's aligned with your purpose. And if you're stuck on purpose, it's kind of a separate episode, but if you're stuck, at least review Simon Sinek's Start With Why. And as Maya Angelou famously said, "People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but they'll never forget how you made them feel." And that applies to you in your own goal journey as well. Are you gonna be kind to yourself all the way there? How can you feel good about your goal, about your dream, win or lose, because there's gonna be failure on the way. It's a given. So being kind to yourself, being supportive of yourself, having your own back through that failure is gonna turn out to be a real big asset for you. So that's number one, get your goal sorted. Number two, you really need a plan for how you're going to get to your goal, and it has to have sub goals, because really those little wins along the way are gonna be important and also, they're gonna keep you on track making this goal inevitable. And surely, for most people listening, making a plan and creating sub goals, if you're a type A personality, it's gonna really appeal to you to do that. So that's number two. Number three, you need to be certain that you'll succeed, and that comes from blind faith at this point, until you work out, probably somewhere towards the end of your journey, how you'll actually make it happen. So that's step three. Step four, and your brain might tell you this is the kind of tricky part is, you need to take consistent, massive action on your plan from certainty and purpose, so that's why we work on certainty and your Why initially. If you have faith, you're gonna employ it now to keep taking action, right at the point when you don't know what action is actually going to bring results. And number five, you're gonna need to generate enthusiasm, and inspiration to do that. You need to fall in love with your goal. You need to think about what it's gonna create for you and other people, and who you're gonna become in the achieving of it. Because otherwise, if you don't do that, you're basically gonna keep grunting towards your goal acting from fear. Here's another quote from Amy Edmondson, she wrote a book called "The Fearless Organization." She says,"What many people do not realize is that motivation by fear is highly effective at creating the illusion that goals are being achieved, it's not effective in ensuring that people bring the creativity, good process and passion needed to accomplish challenging goals in knowledge intensive work places." And I'm betting that's probably going to apply to you. Okay, so number six, you probably need to connect with allies to support your achievement of your goals. So you need to reach out for like minded support in all likelihood, but really, when you're doing that, you need to draw the right people, don't keep people around you, who are going to steal your hope, who entertain negative thoughts about what's possible, because really, did those people's thinking create outstanding results for them? Or are they using them to stay stuck in their own lives? Dig into your why. So this is, again, back to Simon Sinek. Stand in your why to attract others. There's something really compelling about people who are very passionate about their Why, why they're doing what they're doing? And when you stand in your why, when you let it permeate everything that you do, all the decisions you make, you're basically going to become a cause that will attract like minded others, and you're going to be able then to be really bold about what you promise, and what you do, and what you deliver. And you're gonna polarize people a lot, so this is good, because when you really stand firmly in a why, people are gonna know who you are and what you believe in, and it will polarize people, either they'll massively believe with you because it aligns with their beliefs, and they'll come towards you, or they won't agree with you and they'll walk away. And this is what you want. You want to draw the people to you who will work with you, and you want to push people away who are following a different track in life and can't be supportive of your goal. You also... When you're standing in your why, what really happens is that you're able to stay open, keep the vision alive, keep giving good value, keep doing it from good energy. And you can become the leader you want to be in this venture by championing yourself and your goal, but also you'll, by extension, you'll champion other people. And I think about it as well, that people really don't leave an organization, they leave their direct superior, and that's you. So you're going to have to present a vision to the people you'd like to work with, and who can contribute to your dream. And in the way of attracting others, really don't try and promote the cleverness and complexity of your idea. Tell the really simplest heart story you can that any 10 year old could relate to. Because in that way, you're gonna connect with everyone, and everyone is gonna connect back who is was like minded. Peter Lynch said once, "Never invest in any idea you can't illustrate with a crayon." And I'm kind of on board with that. And when you're doing the work of your goal, the groundwork of your goal, accept only worthy fails. Adjust as you learn more, don't adjust because you didn't do the work. So all of this is really about ignoring what you think you know, 'cause that will only create past limited success, and experiment with things that you don't yet know, and what happens as you take action is just what happens. It's neither good nor bad. It means nothing. It's just what happened. It means nothing about you, it means nothing about your goal, it means nothing about success, unless you donate a negative belief about it. It remains just what happens, unless you decide that means something bad. So don't... It's just an experiment mill, you just keep going and going and going with massive action until you find things that work. And your conscious and intentional engagement with this process should support an open curiosity, which stimulates and allows for progress in all sorts of unknown directions. So, simply trust your heart and keep doing the work. Here's a good question to ask yourself. Every morning when you get up in the morning, reaffirm your goal, say it to yourself, inspire yourself with what might be possible on it, and ask yourself a question a

Use this one if you like,"If I knew nothing about how this might work, what would I try next?" Terrific start point. Really, the bottom line is never give up. And that's going to require managing your own expectations and feelings first and foremost, and that's exactly the work we're doing in our goals class this week, finding ways to support our goals and our dreams until they're successful, just simply by managing our minds. And the people in this group, I'm gonna guarantee they will succeed, I can see it in them already, so I wish you every success with your goals. Please don't give up. Thank you so much for listening. That's what I got for you today. I appreciate you being here. If you're in burnout, struggling to even think about goals, exhausted and over it, you must come and talk to me about how you can recover quickly and sustainably, and get back to your best performance and leadership, and most of all, enjoyment inside work and out. If you're in burnout, and ready to recover, come and join my Burnout to Leadership Programme. You can book in to talk with me at burnout.dexrandall.com. Just tell me what's bugging you, and let's make a plan to fix it.