Skip to main content

Goals (& Indulgences)

..or what used to be known as New Year's Resolutions.

Each year brings its highs and lows, and the eternally optimistic human race believes that we get a fresh start each January 1st.   Belief is a strong driver, and optimism is capable of delivering very good results.

So, with that in mind, in January 2014 I decided to try and give myself some good advice....
  1. Enjoy more special family and friend time, have got a bit too chilled and lazy over weekends – Did quite well on this one until March.
  2. Remain passionate about what matters, but not angry when things go wrong – my execs tell me about 50% success rate!
  3. Be upfront about issues, deal with them quickly, and avoid continual negative comments, frustration and feelings (mine) – Same as above
  4. Delegate 3 business tasks that I have been hanging on to - Done
  5. Set aside formal time to deal with personal issues every week eg doctor's appointments, checking bank statements, sorting out home maintenance, submitting medical claims – Minimal success on this one
  6. Focus more on strategy, and less on operational stuff, I have a great team that will ask for my input if they need it – Still need to work on this…
  7. Set aside one hour per day to reduce my eMail count, every day, except Saturday and some Sundays – Definite improvement, but not there yet.
  8. And most importantly, start each week by reading through my goals, and ensuring that I am on track – Mmmm, not achieved at all.
So every year we set these wonderful goals, expectations, resolutions in the spirit of a "new me", and every year most of us fall hopelessly behind before the end of January.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I decided I needed some quick wins, so I set myself a few achievable goals that I hoped would keep me positive, and then maybe the less easily achievable ones would fall into place.
  • I will try not to multi task (including cell phone chats in the car, but mostly this is about focusing on the person in front of me) – Needs much more focus
  • I will put petrol in my car, when its not less than a quarter full, and check the tyres at the same time – 60% success rate
  • I will watch at least 2 feel good TV shows per week (probably Modern Family and Last Man Standing) and allow myself to multi task ie playing Funtrivia, Quizup, Scrabble or Diamond Dash while watching – Totally achieved this one, and added to it too.
  • I will counter all the TV by going to Pilates and thinking about a Yoga class – Pilates happening, still thinking about Yoga.
  • I will remember that the inefficient person dealing with my problem has probably been badly trained, and not focus my anger on them, rather try to help them resolve my issue – I have given some rather impassioned lectures to a number of service providers, didn’t get angry, though
  • I will work on sounding calm and in control, even when I am jumping inside (mainly to conclusions) – Oh, dear, might have overlooked this one
  • I will not finish books I am not enjoying because I think I am letting down the author – Only managed to do this once, but still I am pleased that I managed it
  • I will read this list every week – Oops!
Both lists were far from complete, so I set myself one additional objective:

Review and renew all objectives once a month

I have to admit that 12 months later, I am still a work in progress, with lots of areas to improve and work on.   I do have some new goals, though, a mix of personal and business, that should keep me stretched in 2015.

What about you?

Links and References
Business Connexion:Accsys
email:      tschroenn@accsys.co.za
twitter:   @TerylSchroenn
Accsys News

Note
Thank you for reading Teryl@Work.   Should you wish to use any of the material, please acknowledge this blog as the source

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Its all about the numbers - retirement age

Weight, height, age, dress size, shoe size, all numbers that we (and the media) use to define people. I was fascinated by an article from the Leicester Mercury where the age of each witness to a bus crash in January were carefully listed. Sue Kellett, 56, whose front garden is bordered by the wall, was one of the first at the scene. Read more: http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/Bus-driver-airlifted-hospital-collision-tractor/story-20512289-detail/story.html#ixzz31lXUuyZg Read more at http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/Bus-driver-airlifted-hospital-collision-tractor/story-20512289-detail/story.html#9cHShVptF30lJw4X.99 Sue Kellett, 56, whose front garden is bordered by the wall, was one of the first at the scene. Read more: http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/Bus-driver-airlifted-hospital-collision-tractor/story-20512289-detail/story.html#ixzz31lXUuyZg Read more at http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/Bus-driver-airlifted-hospital-collision-tractor/story-20512289-detail/story.htm...
Post a Comment
Read more

Feeding the Right Wolf

Feeding the Right Wolf This Cherokee story resonated with me (see below).     Like many business people, I get caught up in managing details, instead of focusing on strategy and growth.   Measuring myself against the Good Wolf concept has become a way of thinking for me. Feeding the good wolf - focusing on the right stuff! In a previous article on this topic, I commented that the message is simple, the wolf you feed is the one that grows. The good wolf attributes in a business are where we ideally should spend our time, that good old 80 – 20 rule focusing on our   engaged employees, improving client experience and quality of product,   to name a few. Creating a Good Wolf Environment While we have many different tools – appraisals, customer and employee surveys – to try and understand the temperature and levels of entropy in our businesses – the truth is that it is really difficult to explain to people that they are not seen as feeding the good wo...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is the employee toxic or simply disengaged?

Is the employee toxic or simply disengaged?  And how to tell? Dissecting Employee Behaviour We spend hours of management time dissecting employee behaviour to ensure that not only is each employee delivering to a minimum expectation, he or she is not actively undermining the effectiveness of the business. We design KPAs (or KPIs, or whatever we want to call them), we run regular appraisals, we discuss career paths and succession plans, and  as long as toxic employees are delivering on their job description, we keep them! It’s only after they leave, when you hear the collective deep breath of relief from colleagues and management, that you can be absolutely sure of the negative impact. Underperformance vs Undermining My view has changed – rather an underperformer, than an underminer. So what to do? Once you have firmly established that undermining is the problem, the first step is to tell them that you are onto them! Never an easy task, because very few p...
Post a Comment
Read more