It’s easier to meet goals when other people are expecting something from us – our boss, our work team, customers, family. We don’t want to let them down.

But when our goals are personal, it can be more difficult to get traction. We might put off personal goals because we think they only matter to us.

Implementing this simple three-step process can help.

One: Buddy Up!

Find an accountability buddy. Your buddy is someone who has their own goal to accomplish. They will commit to holding you accountable and vice versa.

You both agree to scheduled check-ins and complete honesty about your progress, or your lack of progress.

There will be times when you don’t make progress. After all, the whole reason you need a buddy is because you’ve been struggling to meet this goal on your own.

Continue reading “Getting things done! Three tools to keep you on track.” →

Failure sucks! Pardon my honesty, but I can’t think of a single person who likes to fail. It’s painful. It’s embarrassing. It is to be avoided at all costs. Right? Well, good luck with that.

Two facts:

#1. You will fail. Failure is mandatory, not optional.

#2. There can be no success without failure. Failure is learning.

Standing Upright and Moving Forward

If you’ve ever watched children learning to walk, you know that they do a great deal of falling down! They stand, wobble, and fall. They pull themselves up, and fall again, and again, bumping their heads and skinning their knees.

Yet their enthusiasm is unwavering. They keep trying until they master the task of standing upright and moving forward.

We learn to ride a bike, ice skate, and ski by falling down. If we keep trying, most of us master these skills. So instead of calling it falling down, maybe we should call it falling up.

“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”  – Winston Churchill

Each time a child falls he gathers some bit of information he can use on the next attempt. He doesn’t focus on the failure; he just keeps trying. As adults, we can do the same thing.

Unfortunately by the time we reach adulthood, we have been trained to think of failure as bad and shameful. We forget what we intrinsically knew as children.

Of course, the stakes can be higher. Adult failures can involve losing jobs, money, relationships, and reputation. Still, it’s worth remembering rule #1. Failure is not optional. It happens to us all at some time. Stand up and move forward!

A Story of Failure Continue reading “Falling up. Two Facts and One Story About Failure.” →